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THE LADY ECCLESIA 



THE 

LADY ECCLESIA 

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



BY 

GEORGE MATHESON, M.A., D.D., F.R.S.E. 

MINISTER OF THE PARISH OF ST. BERNARD'S, EDINBURGH 



NEW YORK 

DODD MEAD & CO. 

149— 151, FIFTH AVENUE 

1897 



SB 1 2,5 






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PREFACE 

IN this narrative, though I have compressed 
nations into miles and centuries into weeks, 
I have seldom departed from the stream of history, 
nowhere, I hope, from the stream of experience. 
I do not think the beauty of an allegory is its 
puzzle, but its obviousness. As a key therefore 
to these pages, let me state that most of the 
characters are representative, even when suggested 
by individual names. Ecclesia — the New Testa- 
ment word for the Church — represents that inner 
life of Christianity itself which was originally the 
flower of Judaism. Hellenicus represents that 
phase of the Greek mind which came into brief 
contact with the flower of Judaism. The Lord 
of Palatine represents the Roman Emperor, but 
not any particular emperor ; Caiaphas, the Jewish 
Priesthood, but not any special priest. Phoebe 



vi PREFACE 

— the letter-carrier of the Apostles — stands for the 
ministrant influence of the new faith ; the captain 
of the guard figures the imperial system ; while 
the " son of the star " in chapter xxiv., though 
a real historical character, represents the false 
Christ everywhere. I have had some difficulty 
in introducing the person of the true Christ I 
have felt that to make Him speak directly in 
broad daylight, except in the actual words of 
the Gospels, might seem irreverent; I have 
therefore taken frequent refuge under the cover 
of the dream. I have only to add that there 
has been a designed exclusion of all local colour- 
ing, in order to keep the mind from dwelling on 
the accidents. The framework is historical, but 
the picture ought to be universal — the same 
yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. MY HOME I 

II. THE LETTER OF HELLENICUS ... 9 

III. THE CONCLAVE OF THE ISLAND . . .17 

IV. THE DECISION OF THE CONCLAVE . .27 
V. THE INTERVIEW 38 

VI. A VISION OF THE NIGHT . . . .46 

VII. THE STRUGGLE OF REASON AND FAITH . 54 

VIII. IN THE VALLEY ...... 63 

IX. THE PRIESTHOOD OF HUMANITY. . . 75 

X. THE LAST MADE FIRST . , . . 87 

XI. NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD . , . • 97 

XII. IN FRONT OF THE ACCUSER * . . 108 



Vllt 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. 

XIII. PHCEBE 

XIV. THE CONFESSION BEFORE MEN . 
XV. INWARD WANDERINGS 
XVI. HOURS OF CONVALESCENCE 
XVII. A SECRET MEETING . 
XVIII. MY NEW CORRESPONDENT . 
XIX. ALONE IN THE STORM 
XX. THE DAY OF CRISIS . 
XXI. THE TRAGEDY OF THE INNER SHRINE 
XXII. BEFORE THE DEPARTURE . 

XXIII. OUTSIDE THE GATES . 

XXIV. THE FIRST WORLDLY TEMPTATION 
XXV. THE SECOND WORLDLY TEMPTATION 

XXVI. PALATINE HOUSE 
XXVII. IN THE HALL OF JUDGMENT 
XXVIII. THE JUDGMENT .... 
XXIX. THE THIRD WORLDLY TEMPTATION 
XXX. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS . 



PAGE 
. II 9 

. 129 

. 142 

. iS4 
. 166 
. 180 

• 193 

. 206 

. 220 
. 232 

• 243 
. 256 
. 269 
. 282 

• 294 

• 307 
- 3 l6 

• 3 2 4 



CHAPTER 1 
MY HOME 

FROM the shores of our island no man had 
ever seen land. Far as the eye could reach, 
and far as the memory could travel, there had 
never been a hint of anything beyond. From the 
dawn of historic time men had looked out on the 
sea and beheld nothing more. Generation after 
generation had tried to see more. The eye had 
peered into the distance, and had come back 
without a message. The ear had listened to the 
moaning of the waters, and had caught no human 
murmur. Ships had gone forth to explore : some 
had returned after vain voyaging ; some had sunk 
beneath the wave; none had brought tidings of 
land. 

The sea was our great problem. Almost the 
first question of our childhood was, "What is 
opposite ? " and the answer was ever the same, " I 
don't know." Frequently we made journeys from 



2 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

one end of the island to the other ; but it was 
always to look at the sea. We often thought that 
our pleasure in these journeys lay in the sights 
of the island ; but in this we deceived ourselves. 
Our search was really for a voice from the sea. It 
was the hope that some new angle of the road 
might waft a fresh breath from the ocean— a breath 
that should bear upon its wings the murmur of the 
shells upon another shore. 

This is really the answer to a charge which has 
often been made against the people of our island. 
We have been accused of frivolity, of inability to 
rest, of perpetual search for the new. After long 
experience, I say it is not so. I, Ecclesia, daughter 
of the island, born of its rulers, bred in its customs, 
recipient of its pleasures, with a full knowledge of 
its men and women, and, better still, with an 
adequate knowledge of myself, declare that I and 
my countrymen, where we have sought at all, have 
never sought but one thing — the secret of the sea. 
All our search for novelty is our search for the 
opposite land. If we flit from flower to flower, it 
is because in each flower we fail to find what we 
sought. It is not that we have found the new 
thing and grown tired of it; it is that we have 
never found it. There are those among us who 
climb height after height unsatisfied ; but they 



MY HOME 3 

are not really changeable. At every height they 
seek only one thing — a commanding view of the 
sea. If they found it, they would stop. 

I have said that I was descended from the rulers 
of the island. I have rather expressed a claim 
than indicated a possession. My father was Moses 
ben-Israel. He professed to be the head of the 
oldest clan in the community. He claimed to 
have received the island by a deed of gift. He did 
so on very peculiar grounds. One of his ancestors, 
a namesake of his own, had spent his life in the 
long search. His eye had rested on a height 
called Pisgah, far above the mist and the haze. 
He felt that, if he could get there, he might learn 
something of a world beyond the sea. One day, 
in a serene sky, he ascended its summit, and re- 
turned no more. He was sought for by crag and 
stream; but he returned no more. There was 
no trace of his living ; there was no trace of his 
dying ; only, on a cleft of the hill, there was 
found a tablet of stone, on which in clear letters 
there was graven this inscription : " Moses, the 
man of Pisgah ; unto thee and to thy seed will I 
give this land." 

My father held this to be a divine bequest — a 
deed of gift which committed the island to him 
and to his heirs for ever. He had no doubt about 



4 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

its supernatural origin. Neither had I ; yet to me 
the value of the inscription lay in something very 
different. What was the land of which this 
ancient Moses had received a promise? Was it, 
as my father thought, the island on which we 
dwelt ? Was it not rather the land for which he 
had been seeking ? Did not the tablet say that — 
though the outer eye had failed — the inner sight 
had been victorious ? Did it not mean to tell 
that the vision of faith had seen what the vision 
of sense could not, and that beyond the waste 
of waters there was a home for the spirit of man ? 

I remember making the suggestion to my father. 
I shall never forget how he received it. It was the 
first occasion on which I ever saw him angry — the 
only subject on which I have ever seen him ruffled. 
" Ecclesia," he said, " let us have no more of these 
fancies. It is bad enough to be denuded of one's 
rights without having it sanctioned by a theory. I 
have lived here all my life in poverty and struggle. 
Families but of yesterday have passed me by. 
They have patronised me — me who was in flow T er 
before they were in root. I have caught the dust 
from their chariot wheels ; I have seen them smile 
in benignant pity. But I have been sustained 
through all. What is it that has sustained me? 
It is the knowledge that this island is mine 



MY HOME S 

by right to-day and shall be mine in fact to- 
morrow. You speak of a land beyond. If it were 
only a romance, I would let it pass ; but it is 
a romance that spoils the reality. I have been 
striving all day to hit the mark on a tree, and you 
tell me that perhaps there is another tree — a tree 
beyond the ocean. You are diverting the strength 
of my aim, and I want it all. My promised land 
is here. My duty has been bequeathed to me by 
a hundred sires, and I shall bequeath it to you 
by-and-by." 

And so I sought to turn my mind from the 
great sea — from the mystery of the ocean to the 
promise of the land. It seemed more loyal, more 
sacred, more religious, to be prosaic. It was 
against my nature, and therefore I felt it must 
be good. I had always been taught that virtue 
lies in doing what we don't wish to do. I had 
always been told that the value of a deed was 
in proportion to its pain. To me the thought 
of religion was inseparable from the thought of 
sacrifice. Surely religion was here. My heart 
was in the murmur of the shell, and my loathing 
in the murmur of the world. Ought not my heart 
to yield to my loathing ? Should not the secular 
life by its very repugnance become to me the 
divine life? Why should I not take up my 



6 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

father's quarrel — the trampled honour of his family ? 
He was only a servant in his own house. He 
paid rent for his sn>all estate to the lord of the 
island — his island. Who was his master ? Caesar 
of Palatine Hill — a man, comparatively, of yester- 
day. Did he not well to be angry? ought not I 
to be angry too? Was not this to me the first 
and great commandment, " Thou shalt revive the 
glories of the house of Israel " ? 

The greatest events of our lives are the events 
that are purely inward. One day something 
happened to me — something known only to my- 
self. I was in the sitting-room, and I was alone. 
I was thinking what I could do to bring back 
the fortunes of my race. What could I do ? I 
was a girl of eighteen, and had seen little of life. 
I was an only child. I had never known a 
mother's care ; she had died at my birth. I had 
been brought up in much seclusion ; the family 
pride and the family poverty had combined to 
isolate me. I felt at this moment the burden of 
the land to be as heavy as the burden of the sea ; 
I was impotent from sheer ignorance. Suddenly 
there befell a thing which happens periodically 
to old furniture ; there was a crack in the wood 
behind the mirror. I rose mechanically and ap- 
proached the direction of the sound. I looked 



MY HOME 7 

mechanically at the polished surface. I had done 
so a thousand times before, and seen nothing but 
the commonplace. All at once I started. If the 
heavens had opened, I could not have been more 
surprised. A revelation came to me, unsought, 
undreamed of. I was beautiful — distinctly, un- 
mistakably beautiful. I stood in the presence of 
myself with unveiled face, and I admired. 

What boundless conceit! you say. You are 
wrong. It was the most impersonal revelation 
I ever received in my life. I said, " I am beauti- 
ful," as I would have said, " The day is fine," or 
"The fields are green." If you ask me why I 
said it to-day rather than yesterday, I cannot tell ; 
but neither can you tell why you do the same 
thing. There is a time in the life of every man 
and woman in which he or she first said, "This 
is beauty." It is a matter of small consequence 
whether the object be one's self or another ; the 
point is that there is a definite time for the 
revelation. When or how it comes, I know not ; 
but this I do know, that in the large majority 
of cases the hour of its coming is not the hour 
of its first appearing. To-day the child treads 
ruthlessly over the flowers ; to-morrow he comes 
back to admire them. A few minutes ago the 
mirror simply reflected ; it now did more — it 



8 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

revealed. I took the old step over the old stile, 
and in the act there came to me a new world ; 
I had stepped from despair into hope. 

For, standing before that mirror, there flashed 
into my heart a great design. There came to me 
an intoxicating moment of self-conscious power. 
I lost sight of the shore and the waters. For 
the first time in my life there rose before me a 
vision of empire. I was not the poor creature I 
had deemed. I had a gift ; I had a talisman. 
What was wanted to restore the glory of my race ? 
Was it not wealth, and w r ealth alone ? I would 
bring back the glory ; I would recall the ancient 
splendour. I looked down to the valleys, where 
my people were struggling. I looked up to the 
proud crest of Palatine Hill, where dwelt the lord 
of the island. And I said, "I shall draw them 
together ; I shall unite the mountain and the 
vale." The image of an earthly kingdom swam 
before my eyes ; the ambition of a human great- 
ness leapt within my heart. Yet I know that 
even then it was another form of the old, old 
story ; and ever from the lonely beach came up 
the low surge of the sea. 



CHAPTER II 
THE LETTER OF HELLENICUS 

THE next scene reproduced by memory is 
after three years. I am sitting in the same 
room ; I am looking at the same mirror ; I am 
beholding the same figure ; and I am again alone. 
I have triumphed — beyond all my dreams I have 
triumphed. It was no deception, this perilous gift 
of beauty. It had led me, like the instinct of the 
bee, to the making of a great house. A letter is 
before me. It is from Hellenicus, brother of him 
who rules the island — Caesar of Palatine Hill. He 
offers me the alliance of his interests — his heart 
and his hand. For three years I have been the 
magnet of the social circle. I have known my 
power ; I have used it. It has been no surprise 
to me to receive this letter ; I have seen it coming. 
And now it is come, and I have conquered : ought 
I not to be glad ? 

Am I glad? You, who read these memoirs, 

9 



io THE LADY ECCLESIA 

consider the peculiarity of my case. Do you 
imagine that at any time my ambition had been 
personal ? Do you think that for a single moment 
my vision of empire had been a girl's forecast of 
individual wealth or power ? Ambition there was 
forecast there was ; but for myself, never. It was 
for my race, my people, my buried lineage. My 
act of worldliness was to me an act of sacrifice. 
It was a consecration, a surrender, an altar fire. 
Personal joy was out of the question : if I had 
wanted personal joy, I would have mused by the 
sea. My love was in the mystery of the ocean ; 
my duty was in the pleasures of the land. To 
me the spirit of the world had become the will 
of God. It was the will of God because it was 
contrary to my own will. It was the cross which 
I had to take up, the penance to which I had 
to devote myself. It was my asceticism, my 
solitude, my self-denial. I had yielded my indi- 
vidual life to the service of my family, and, if 
there was any joy for me, it must come in the 
glory of my people. 

Had I reached this joy ? The letter was before 
me. What did it say ? All that was luscious, all 
that was gushing. There was a picture in one 
of our rooms of a man in a garden who is allowed 
to eat of every tree but one, which was consecrated 



THE LETTER OF HELLENICUS n 

to the will of God. This letter seemed to me to 
go beyond that picture. It offered the trees 
without any prohibition and without consecrating 
a single spot. The note from beginning to end 
was, " Get rid of trouble." Strange to say, it was 
this element in the letter which disturbed me. It 
ignored the only thing which had been my motive 
— the desire to sink myself in my race. As I ran 
my eye down the passages I felt annoyance at the 
very places where most would have experienced 
delight. " Leave these weeping valleys and come 
aloft. Come up into the pure air, into the bright 
sunshine. Why drag out your days amongst 
things beneath you ? On the uplands where I 
dwell the heart is ever light. We forget the cares 
of the valley ; we toil not, we spin not. Come to 
me, and you shall rest. Your life shall be one long 
summer day. It shall move through the path 
where the birds sing, where the flowers bloom. It 
shall be fanned by gentle breezes ; it shall be 
regaled by sweetest melodies. Its morning shall 
be the lark, and its eve the nightingale. No sorrow 
shall come near you ; no trouble shall dim your 
eye ; no work shall soil your hand. All your 
burdens shall be borne by others. They shall 
bring you the pearl from the sea and the treasure 
from the mine. They shall spread for you the 



12 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

luxurious couch ; they shall furnish your table ; 
they shall row your barge ; they shall drive your 
chariot Your sight shall be veiled from all scenes 
of misery. Your ear shall be curtained from all 
cries of pain. You shall live in the present ; you 
shall neither anticipate nor remember. You shall 
never look at a grave, never listen to the word 
* death.' Where the shadows gather, you shall 
call on the music and the dance to chase them 
away. In the forge tfulness of all that is sad you 
will learn what it would be to be divine." 

So ran the glowing words. Were they glorious 
as well as glowing? Did they express my own 
ideal of life, of" what it would be to be divine " ? To 
me the divine life had always been the life contrary 
to nature — the life which did what it did not wish 
to do. Here the divine life was nature itself; it 
was the love of all outward things, and the power 
to gratify that love. " Leave these weeping 
valleys"? They were the very things I wanted 
to take with me. They belonged to my father's 
grounds ; their inhabitants had been the retainers 
of his house for centuries. It was for these 
weeping valleys I had taught my eyes to look 
upon the hills. It w r as to lift them up that I 
wished myself to be lifted up. I heard them ever 
saying in the words of one of my old songs, 



THE LETTER OF HELLENICUS 13 

" Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from 
following after thee." Whoever would take me 
must take my burden too. Was it fair that this 
man should be deceived ? Was it right he should 
think me unencumbered ? Was it well he should 
even figure me with an empty heart which he 
could fill ? No ; I must speak with him, I must 
tell him. He must know what I had, what I had 
not, to give. He must take me with my thorn, 
knowing it to be a thorn. He must learn that I 
could not, dared not live for individual joy. He 
must accept me, not for myself alone, but for the 
sake of my people. 

Hark ! what was that ? Was the storm rising ? 
Was the surge of the sea becoming more accen- 
tuated? My father's house was on the plain 
between the valley and the hill. From the region 
beneath there began to ascend a strange murmur. 
At first I thought it the voice of nature ; by-and-by 
it was like the voice of man. It rose and swelled 
like a wave, but without its rhythm. There was 
no uniformity about it. Sometimes it was quick, 
sometimes slow ; now a dirge or wail, and anon a 
shout of anger. The noise deepened ; the valleys 
seemed to be climbing ; I grew cold in every limb. 
Presently I heard the approach of footsteps. The 
door was hurriedly opened, and my father came in. 



i 4 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

He was deadly pale, though maintaining his 
habitual calm. 

" What is wrong, father ? " I said. 

" The plague has broken out in the valleys." 

" The plague ! What plague ? " 

" The old enemy of this island." 

" I never heard of it, father." 

" Oh ! it is no new thing ; but its outbursts are 
only once or twice in a lifetime. The last was 
before you were born. We never like to speak of 
such things." 

" But what is the clamour, father ? Is it pain ? 
Is it fear?" 

" It is the strangest thing that ever entered into 
the mind of man. This plague comes in the form 
of a black spot on the heart ; but nobody ever 
feels it in himself. The first intimation a man 
gets that he is a victim is seeing the black 
spot in imagination on the face of another. The 
affected men down yonder believe themselves 
to be unaffected. They see their own disease on 
the bodies of those who have given no sign of 
it. They do not want them to come near lest 
they catch the pestilence. Some are shrieking in 
dismay. Some are shouting threats. Some are 
imploring their brethren to leave them. Some are 
throwing stones to drive them back into the sea ; 



THE LETTER OF HELLENICUS 15 

and the children are screaming because they hear 
others scream." 

" Oh, it is sad, it is heartrending ! " I cried, burst- 
ing into tears. 

" Sadder than you deem," he said. " How do 
you think it will affect your prospects ? Have you 
answered Hellenicus ? " 

I winced. Of all the salt drops I had shed, not 
one had fallen on account of him. " I have not 
answered him," I said. " I am glad I have not 
answered ; I can release him from any bond on his 
honour by simply refusing him. A few minutes 
ago I would have given him the alternative of 
taking me with my burden or passing me by. But 
now I cannot ; I will bring no tarnished blood into 
another house." 

" Tarnished blood ! " he cried. " And who 
tarnished it? He and such as he. If we had 
remained as God made us, there is no blood in the 
island so pure as ours. It is the i other house ' 
that has infected us. These people in the valleys 
have done as you were about to do — intermarried. 
It is from men like Hellenicus that our plague has 
come. If you went to him, the sacrifice would be 
all on your side." 

"Father," I exclaimed, "if I thought that, I 
would go. If he had put such a postscript to his 



16 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

letter, he would have had little to fear. It is the 
want of sacrifice on my part that drives me from 
him. It seems to me that those of us who are 
whole are in debt to those that are sick, whoever 
they may be — Hellenicus or another. Is nothing 
to be done? Are we to sit here calmly, over- 
looking the scene of misery, and beholding man's 
inhumanity to man ? Are we to allow men to 
lacerate one another, exterminate one another, 
when a soothing word might save ? Come, let us 
go down to them, you and I together. You are 
their king by right; you shall be their king in 
truth when you have won their hearts." 

" Ecclesia," he said, " I cannot, I dare not. A 
message has arrived from Palatine Hill, command- 
ing that all the gates be shut which lead to the 
valleys. There is to be a public meeting to-morrow, 
and it will be followed by a more drastic decree 
forbidding all contact with the infected district." 

" Then," said I, " I must appeal to the pity of 
Hellenicus." 



CHAPTER III 
THE CONCLAVE OF THE ISLAND 

THE next day, within the largest hall in 
the island, there was gathered the most 
august assembly I have ever seen. Never before, 
never since, have I witnessed such a meeting 
of man with man. It was summoned by a 
succession of trumpets, each repeating at the 
farthest audible distance the blast of the other, 
until the signal became universal. They came 
from far and near, the representatives of this 
little sea-girt world. They came to consider the 
danger in the valleys — the pestilence and the 
tumult. They came from the leading families, 
from the leading professions. There were soldiers, 
lawyers, priests, physicians, landed proprietors. 
As I sat beside my father, a spectator of the 
scene, I asked myself if there was any interest 
unrepresented. Yes, there was one. There was 
an extraordinary omission. They had come to 



18 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

legislate for the valleys ; but from these valleys 
themselves there was no representative. No 
trumpet had sounded below. Not a voice had 
been summoned from the contaminated district. 
There was every testimony but direct testimony ; 
all manner of vociferation round the wounded 
comrade, but no contact with the comrade's 
wounds. Looking on that great assembly, I felt 
then, I feel now, that there was a link wanting to 
the brotherhood of man. 

In the centre of the building, on a golden throne, 
sat the president of the council — Caesar of Palatine 
Hill. I knew him personally ; I had met him 
in the sphere of social pleasure. But, apart from 
that, I think I should have known him by in- 
ference. Command was stamped on every linea- 
ment ; his eagle aspect would have revealed him 
always and anywhere. His keen eye, his firm 
mouth, his haughty bearing, his imperative gesture, 
would have marked him out in a crowd. Sitting 
immediately below him was one whom I had 
also reason to know — his brother Hellenicus. 
Many men, and most women, would have said 
that his face was more beautiful. Looking at 
the two, I formed the opposite opinion. In the 
relation in which I stood to him, it seemed 
disloyal to say so even to myself. I could 



THE CONCLAVE OF THE ISLAND 19 

not help it. The two kinds of beauty were 
radically different. The one was the seriousness 
of overhanging crags ; the other was the smiling 
of a bank of violets. It was the bank of violets 
that offended my eye. At another time it might 
have pleased me — had pleased me ; but, here and 
now, it was repellent. Caesar of Palatine was not 
sunny, but he was serious ; his brother Hellenicus 
was sunny, but he was not serious. It was his 
smile that disturbed me. He seemed to regard 
the meeting as a fine entertainment. He ex- 
hibited no sense that there were grave issues at 
stake. His eye roamed round the building in 
search of the fashionable and the fair. It was 
no palliation of the offence that in its restful 
moments it lighted chiefly on me. 

On either side of the throne rose a series of 
benches, ascending from floor to ceiling in the 
form of a sloping ladder. These seats were 
allocated on the principle of seniority. Those 
on the ground floor were the men and women 
of the time. In proportion as the benches rose 
and receded, they were occupied by those who 
had been great in a former generation and whose 
immediate day had gone by. It was on these 
last that my eye was riveted, and increasingly 
riveted with the measure of the regress. With 



20 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

a strange fascination I fixed my gaze on the 
occupants of the seat which was highest and re- 
motest. I never saw such a peculiar assemblage 
as on this topmost bough. They were all old — 
extremely old. They looked like an anachronism. 
It was as if, in walking through the fields of this 
spring, one had seen a leaf of last autumn. Sear 
and yellow the leaves indeed were ; and yet it 
seemed to me that in their ruin they were more 
majestic than anything which I had seen in its 
strength. I was disposed to realise the saying 
which an old nurse had taught me concerning the 
ancient time : " There were giants in those days." 

" Father," I said, " who are these men at the 
farthest distance and the highest height?" 

" These," he answered, " form the section called 
The Chamber of the Past.' They are a band of 
physicians. They have been summoned, I sup- 
pose, because on account of their earlier day they 
may be presumed to know more of the origin of 
this pestilence. But hush ! the president is rising." 

" Men of the island," said the Lord of Palatine 
Hill, " I have called you together because the 
fulness of the time has come. The fulness of 
the time is the fulness of our need. A plague, 
which has been the curse of our valleys, and 
whose manifestations have been from time to time 



THE CONCLAVE OF THE ISLAND 21 

suppressed, has broken out again with redoubled 
violence. Had it been simply a question of human 
suffering, we might have left it to the priests and 
the doctors. But it is a suffering which has taken 
a peculiar form. Each man believes his brother, 
and not himself, to be the afflicted party, and 
each wants to expel his brother. It is therefore 
an enmity of man against man. Such a thing 
cannot exist in this island, of which fate has 
made me overseer. For the valleys, indeed, I 
care nothing. Let the afflicted parties exterminate 
one another. The sooner the better. I desire 
that in this island none should survive but the 
strong. I would have every element eliminated 
which cannot be put to outward use ; I would 
have nothing preserved which is incapable of 
active service. But the question becomes very 
different when there is danger of the valleys 
infecting the uplands. My whole policy in the 
rule of this island has been based on concentra- 
tion. I have sought to bring man and man 
together by the force of a common interest. I 
have studied to unite the conflicting sides of 
human nature by throwing open to all capable 
men a common path of ambition. If the con- 
tagion of this pestilence should reach the uplands, 
my work is undone ; the enmity of man with 



22 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

man would in the higher circles spoil all. I was 
not called upon by the laws of this island to ask 
your advice on this matter. I have an interest 
and I have a duty which I can depute to no other. 
There is no dubiety in my own mind as to the 
course which I ought, which I am bound to take ; 
nor shall I shrink from the responsibility which 
fate has imposed on me. Yet it seemed good 
to me, before taking any action on this grave 
and solemn case, to ascertain with perfect accuracy 
the nature of this social malady. I would hear 
first of all from those who have been nearest to 
it, and specially from those who have been nearest 
to its beginning. I seek my information mainly 
from the Chamber of the Past. I appeal to those 
eminent physicians in the remotest part of this 
building, whose life has touched the boundary- 
line of a more primitive generation, and whose 
experience is more in contact with the earlier 
developments of disease. Have they any light to 
shed upon the nature of this great catastrophe ? " 
Then through the hall there ran a buzz of 
expectation. Presently, like a mist-figure on a 
mountain, there rose on the topmost round the 
form of a little old man, bearing all the decrepitude 
of age, but with an eye which sent forth inter- 
mittent flashes of an earlier day. He never looked 



THE CONCLAVE OF THE ISLAND 23 

at the president. He addressed his words direct 
to the assembly ; but his voice for a time was 
quite inaudible. 

"Who is that, father?" I said. 

"That is the great physician Amos. He has 
long retired from practice, but he still remains 
one of our foremost authorities. He is a self-made 
man, and he is not ashamed of it. As a boy he 
was one of the retainers on our estate in the time 
of my grandfather. But listen ; his voice begins 
to catch the building." 

And, indeed, it was so. In short, jerky sentences, 
like the scintillations of his own eye, the old man's 
words flashed forth. " I come as the spokesman 
for the valleys. I am proud to be their spokesman. 
None has a better right to speak for them. I am 
myself a child of the valleys. I am come of no 
high degree ; I began life as a herd-boy. You 
will hear to-day many voices from the outside ; 
mine is from within. Listen, then, to my testi- 
mony. You have been told that a plague has 
risen in the valleys. There has risen nothing 
anywhere. The plague is not in the valleys, but 
in man, and it has been in man since ever he had 
a history. Don't flatter yourselves that the uplands 
are clean. I tell you that the pestilence is all 
round. It is in the house of pleasure. It is in 



24 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the scene of commerce. It is in the home of 
kings. It is in the haunts of fashion. It is in the 
camp of war. I may say of it what one of our 
poets has said of God, ' Whither can I flee from 
Thy presence ? ' Think you that the valleys are 
more tainted than other parts? I tell you they 
are less so, and less so just by reason of their 
unrest. It is the remaining health in them which 
makes them sensitive to what is a universal 
calamity. If they are more punished, it is because 
they are more favoured. Why should they feel 
specially what every man endures ? Simply be- 
cause it is more foreign to their nature. Do the 
dead feel pain ? Do the blind know darkness ? 
Is not the sense of darkness a proof of day ? Why 
despise ye the valleys, ye who dwell in the upper 
grounds? Behold in them the mirror of your- 
selves. Their pestilence is your pestilence ; their 
taint your taint. Every man here is an undetected 
leper. Every woman here is an undiscovered 
victim. You are walking in the night; but the 
day alone will declare it. The men of the valley 
are in advance of you ; they at least have recog- 
nised their shame." 

With these startling words the old man sac 
down. Strong disapprobation was expressed on 
the faces of the audience, and some hisses arose- 



THE CONCLAVE OF THE ISLAND 25 

"Silence," cried the president; "there must be 
no sign of either approval or disapproval. This 
medical gentleman has informed us that we have 
all the plague latently. We shall not dispute the 
point. We are here to administer law, and law 
has nothing to do with latency. Law can only 
take cognisance of what can be seen, heard, or felt. 
There is a pestilence in these valleys which has 
made itself visible, audible. It has taken the form 
of the enmity of man with man ; that is the danger, 
and that is the problem. It is no answer to this 
problem to tell me that others may be as bad 
to-morrow who are harmless to-day ; to-morrow 
we shall deal with them. To-day I ask if any 
physician among you can put his hand upon a 
cure of the distemper as it exists now and here. 
I appeal again to the Chamber of the Past." 

Four old men started up simultaneously, and 
began to speak together. 

" Who are these ? " I said. 

My father proceeded to describe them. " The 
man at the west corner is the famous Plato. 
He too is long retired from practice ; but at one 
time he was principal of the College of Surgeons. 
The man a little to the east of you is Zoroaster — 
the proprietor of that strange building called ' The 
Tower of Silence.' The one farther east still is the 



26 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

founder of our largest medical school — Gautama 
Buddha ; while the shrewd-looking man at the 
opposite angle from Plato is Confucius, whose 
success as a physician has raised the fortunes of 
one of our wealthiest families of tea-planters." 

The old men, as I have said, began to speak 
simultaneously. The president interposed. " I 
give the preference to Plato because he has been 
the physician to my brother Hellenicus. Each 
shall have his turn. But I desire above all things 
that the judgment of each shall be an independent 
judgment, neither biassed by the friendship nor 
dictated by the enmity of his brother. There is 
an agreement which comes from common interest, 
and there is a disagreement which flows from 
mutual jealousy. I want neither. I wish each 
man to speak in ignorance of the sentiments which 
have preceded him. Therefore, while Plato gives 
his voice, let his brother-physicians retire. Let 
them be kept in separate rooms, awaiting their 
separate summons. Let there be no collusion, no 
comparing of notes. So shall the verdict, in any 
case, be satisfactory. If they be agreed, their 
unity shall be hailed as the voice of nature ; if they 
be at variance, their disunion shall be accepted as 
a proof that the voice of nature is impotent to 
solve the problem." 



CHAPTER IV 
THE DECISION OF THE CONCLAVE 

IN recording the verdict of these eminent 
physicians I shall confine myself to the con- 
clusion of their speeches. Each of them spoke for 
about half an hour, but the opinion of each was 
summarised in his closing utterances. Plato's 
address was an elaborate account of the human 
constitution. He was strongly of opinion that the 
relative value of man's functions had not been 
rightly estimated, that one side of his nature had 
received too much and another too little develop- 
ment. He attributed the plague to this absence of 
order, this excess on the one hand and neglect on 
the other ; and he thus summed up his indication 
of the cure : 

" Gentlemen, there has been a neglected element 
in the life of this island. Everything in the island 
has been utilised, but not the thing which sur- 
rounds it — the sea. There has not been an 



28 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

adequate amount of sea-bathing. You may ask 
me why, then, the plague has taken hold of those 
who are nearest to the sea. Just because they are 
near — too near to see its wonders. The men of 
the valleys are in the presence of a great mystery ; 
but its very presence makes them blind to it. You 
who are farther off from the wonder will better 
understand me. The men of the valleys have had 
their eyes rooted on the land. They have found 
there what they can see and taste and handle — 
what satisfies the needs of the hour, and costs 
them no trouble in the gathering. Yet it is not 
what we can see or taste or handle that gives us 
health ; it is what eludes the eye and the hand. 
There is a mystic element around you. Sail has 
never rounded it ; plummet has never sounded it ; 
man has never seen what is beyond it. But its 
mystery is its power ; its wonder is its stimulus ; 
it refreshes by being inexplicable. If there were 
more sea-bathing, there would be less headache, 
less heartache. Bathe, I say, in the sea. Seek 
more the bosom of the waters. Cultivate the 
element which is foreign to you, which escapes 
you, and yet surrounds you. Surrender yourselves 
to the thought of the boundless, the fathomless. 
Lave your w r eary limbs in that mighty deep whose 
circumference is everywhere, whose limit nowhere ; 



THE DECISION OF THE CONCLAVE 29 

and the weary limbs shall wax strong, and the 
heart shall grow calm, and the head shall become 
clear, and, in all the bounds of the island, plague 
and pestilence shall for ever flee away." 

With these words Plato resumed his seat, and 
the president next called on Confucius to offer his 
suggestion. He gave him the second place on the 
principle of impartiality. He had selected a voice 
from the extreme west wing of the building ; it 
seemed good to hear one now from the extreme 
east. Confucius came forward from a side room in 
utter ignorance of what his predecessor had said. 
He too entered into a description of the human 
frame. He too insisted on the necessity of regimen 
and order. He too maintained the paramount 
importance of subordinating the lower functions 
to the higher. But when he came to state what 
was the higher and what the lower, he quite startled 
the audience by way of contrast. 

"Gentlemen," he said, "there is an element in 
the life of this island which has received too 
much attention to the disparagement of others ; it 
is the sea. There has been an overplus of sea- 
bathing among you. You have been attempting 
to stimulate the mind by a contact with the bound- 
less. There can be no contact with the boundless. 
If you would stimulate either mind or body, you 



30 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

must study, not the water, but the land. You 
must fix your eyes upon that which can be seen, 
felt, measured. You must avoid what is above the 
senses, what carries you beyond your depth. You 
must confine yourselves to the things of the day, 
the objects of the hour. There may be things 
beyond the day, beyond every day ; that passes 
my knowledge. Because it passes my knowledge, 
I refuse to think about it. I turn to what I can 
comprehend. I consider the markets. I calculate 
what I can buy or sell. I sow seeds. I plant 
trees. I build houses. I take my place in society. 
I do speculate at times, but it is not about land on 
the other side of the sea; it is about this land 
wherein we dwell — its crops, its harvests, its trade, 
its prospects of wind and weather. It is to these 
homely pursuits that I would point my brethren. 
In them I see the secret of long life. Live for the 
present, and you shall have a lengthened future ; 
enjoy to-day, and you shall possess to-morrow ; 
no plague shall come nigh your dwelling, if 
your whole aim shall be to keep your dwelling 
clean." 

As Confucius concluded a murmur of applause 
ran through the assembly, which, however, was 
instantly suppressed. Remote as was his genera- 
tion, there was something in his speech which 



THE DECISION OF THE CONCLAVE 31 

exhaled the very atmosphere of Palatine Hill, and 
made one feel that he belonged to modern days. 
Zoroaster was the next called. Knowing nothing of 
previous utterances, he devoted himself to a review 
of contemporary opinion. He said that there were 
some who believed in the salutary influence of 
water, and others who were more favourable to an 
inland life. For his part he did not believe in the 
benefit of either land or water. He criticised at 
length the properties of both, and he thus wound 
up : " Neither on your sea nor on your shore do I 
find the secret of health. To me the specific for 
health is sunshine. We are saved by fire. Not 
from the soil, not from the wave does our safety 
come ; it is from the light. In the warm glow of 
the day our flagging strength is renewed. In the 
divine flame of heaven our weary frame is recon- 
structed and made strong. Ye who are land- 
locked, sea-locked, come up into the light. Come 
and bathe in the beams of the morning. Come 
and bask in the brightness of the noon. Come and 
rejoice in the warmth of the midday. Come and be 
kindled at the glory of the setting. Get out into 
the free spaces where the day is not cabined nor 
confined. Go forth into the open where the sun 
is still untrammelled. Climb up into the high 
places where the glow strikes first and fullest ; 



32 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

and in these towers of silence the elements of 
corruption shall be borne away." 

Then came Buddha, the last of the volunteers. 
He said there were four constituent parts of 
physical nature — the land, the water, the light, and 
the air. He proceeded to examine them one by 
one, and he summed up in these words the result of 
his analysis : " There is only one possible remedy 
for the ills of man, and it is the only one which 
has never received recognition in the past. The 
soil is not salutary ; the water is not salutary ; the 
luminous fire is not salutary. But there remains a 
neglected element of which something might be 
made ; it is the air. At present the air is as bad 
as the others ; but that is by reason of the winds. 
If we could lay the winds, if we could make the air 
stormless, voiceless, if we could establish in the 
atmosphere a great calm, man would be calm too. 
He would cease to desire. Desire is the root of 
all pain, of all unrest, of all disease. Show me an 
atmosphere without storm, and I shall make the 
man to mirror it. I have constructed such an 
atmosphere. It is as yet only in my mind ; but 
the plan is half the battle. I have already given it 
a name. I have called it the Nirvana — the place 
where the winds never blow. Come and inspect 
my plan, ye tossers, ye toilers. Come and behold 



THE DECISION OF THE CONCLAVE 33 

in vision what one day you shall see in fact. Come 
unto me, and / will give you rest." 

When Buddha had finished, the president rose. 
"Men of the island," he said, "you have now 
listened to the representatives from the Chamber of 
the Past. You have heard four of the oldest and 
most revered physicians of that chamber. And 
you have marked how sublimely and how elo- 
quently they have differed from one another. 
Each has selected as his panacea a separate element 
of nature. One has taken the land, another the 
water, a third the air, and a fourth the fire. I need 
not say that, in such divided counsels, I, as ruler of 
this island, can have no confidence. When these 
gentlemen are agreed among themselves, it will be 
time enough to consider their specific. I have 
now to ask if there is any man of the audience who 
has a suggestion to offer different from these." 

A buzz of voices followed, but for a long time 
there was no response. At last a form stood up 
whose every lineament was familiar to me. It was 
Caiaphas, my father's head chaplain, popularly 
known as the high priest. He addressed himself 
direct to the president, as if it were a private trans- 
action between man and man. " Lord of Palatine 
Hill," he said, " I have no human remedy to propose. 
You have truly observed that the world by wisdom 

3 



34 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

has failed to know. You have rightly pointed out 
how utterly contradictory have been the efforts to 
solve the problem made by the Chamber of the 
Past. But, my Lord of Palatine, I am the spiritual 
servant of a house which has always professed to 
have a more sure word of prophecy. You have 
abandoned the claims of fire, air, earth, and water. 
But there is a fifth power ; we call it God. What 
He is in Himself I know not, any more than I 
know what in themselves land, water, air, and fire 
are. But I do know that we can no more live 
without Him than the bird can live without the air 
or the fish without the sea. I say, then, Lord of 
Palatine, let us not neglect this element of life. It 
is expedient that a victim die for the people. Let 
us offer that victim. Let us present to the God of 
heaven a great sacrifice, a gift of the costliest we can 
find. Let us raise a mighty altar, and lay on it the 
choicest of our fold, and let the smoke ascend on high 
as our intercession for the dwellers in the valley." 

The president asked : " Where do you propose to 
offer the sacrifice ? Will you come into contact 
with the plague-stricken ? If so, I shall forbid it." 

" No, my Lord of Palatine," answered the chap- 
lain Caiaphas ; " I propose to present the oblation 
on the top of one of the hills, not only beyond the 
sight, but beyond the reach, of the valleys." 



THE DECISION OF THE CONCLAVE 35 

"In that case," said the president, "it is to me 
a matter of indifference. It is a private and indi- 
vidual question, and does not concern this assembly 
Are there any more suggestions ? " 

A wild thought struck me. My blood was 
boiling at the apathy of man to man. A sacrifice 
at the top of the hill ! A sacrifice which shunned 
the contact of those for whom it was offered ! A 
sacrifice which brought no danger, involved no 
humiliation, required no touch of human sympathy ! 
It was indeed an awful thing. Was there to be no 
voice raised in support of human contact with the 
valleys? Had it not been tacitly conceded that 
their plague was only the outward exhibition of 
a disease which was latently in all men? Why, 
then, should the mountains hold aloof? Was not 
the true form of sacrifice a descent into the valleys 
themselves? Would no one tell this to the 
assembly ? Then I would. Had any one a better 
right ? Was I not by the will of God the heiress 
of this island — and did not the will of God press 
on me to speak ? In a moment I was on my feet 
facing that vast audience. " Are you mad ? " cried 
my father, grasping my arm. " Yes," I answered, 
"mad with the indignation of a wounded heart." 
Then, turning to the assembly, I said : " Natives of 
the island you have mistaken, this day, the nature 



36 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

of your mission." But I got no further ; for 
immediately there arose such a storm of voices 
that my own voice was annihilated. There was 
murmuring, jeering, hooting, shouting, yelling, and 
for a few minutes I felt like a small boat tossed by 
the great ocean. 

Then rose the president, and the loud waves 
grew still. He said : " We cannot hear the Lady 
Ecclesia. Much as we respect her family, and 
greatly as we admire her sex, we are constrained 
to deny her this boon. We cannot concede to 
woman the prerogative of a voice in this assembly. 
Her sphere is at home. Let her kindle the fires 
of the household, and leave us to put out the fires 
of the community ; happy is she to have a task so 
light. And now, men of the island, it is plain that 
your counsel is exhausted. If you had been able 
to suggest any remedy for this vile distemper, it 
would have had my best attention ; but you have 
none — none on which you are harmonious. In the 
absence of remedy there remains only restraint. 
I cannot cure the pestilence, but I can prevent it 
from spreading. In the right of my lordship over 
this island, I do prevent it. I make a law for the 
preservation of the public good. I enact that 
there be no communication with the valleys on 
pain of death. I command that all the gates be 



THE DECISION OF THE CONCLAVE 37 

shut, that all the approaches be closed, which lead 
from you to them and from them to you. I ordain 
that between you and the valleys there be a great 
gulf fixed, so that there be no passage from the 
one to the other. Whoever shall attempt such a 
passage, whoever shall open the gates or clear the 
approaches, will do so with the forfeiture of life. 
I utter it in no spirit of cruelty or arbitrary des- 
potism. I bind myself by my own law. Should I 
transgress that law, should I break these boundaries, 
let no power intervene to save me. Should my 
brother Hellenicus transgress that law, I would be 
no respecter of persons ; he would suffer like the 
meanest in the island. Let no man say that I 
exercise with tyranny the power that fate has 
given me. I am a subject, not a sovereign. I am 
master only till the command is uttered ; the 
moment it is uttered I am, like you, its servant, 
its slave, bound by its observance, answerable for 
its infringement. Such is the spirit in which I 
make this law. If it is drastic, it is not drastic 
against a class ; you and I shall stand equal before 
the bar of an even-handed justice. Does this 
meet your approval ? have I the support and the 
countenance of this assembly ? " And through 
the deluded audience there ran a great " Amen," 



CHAPTER V 

THE INTERVIEW 

" / nP v HEN you refuse to help me?" I spoke to 
JL Hellenicus. I had summoned him to an 
interview in my father's house, and he had come 
the day after the great meeting. 

" Refuse to help you ! " he said ; " is it not to 
help you that I am here ? Have I not offered to 
lift you for ever above the sight of these valleys ? 
Have I not asked you, nay, implored you, to 
spread your wings and be free ? Have I not laid 
at your feet the fulfilment of all possible ambitions? 
I have offered you wealth, luxury, rest, freedom 
from care, scenes and sounds of beauty, days of 
pleasantness, and paths of peace. Is there any 
greater help to life than these ? " 

" To some lives there is not ; but to me there is 
a jewel missing from your casket." 

" Name it, and were it from the other side of 
the sea it shall be added to your store." 

38 



THE INTERVIEW 39 

" It is the love of what I love. I do not believe 
that a mutual affection is a sufficient reason for 
marriage. I think a love should be common as 
well as mutual ; or rather, it should be common 
first and mutual afterwards. If you and I had 
begun by loving a tree, there would have been the 
basis for a starting-point, and the agreement in 
taste might have ripened into a personal attach- 
ment. I see you are smiling at such sentiments on 
the lips of a girl. They are not mine ; I have 
been born in them, bred in them. I have received 
them from a long line of ancestors. These all died 
in the faith that marriage should be regulated, not 
by the mutual admiration of two young persons for 
each other, but by the admiration of both for 
something outside of themselves. I received this 
as a faith ; it has now become a conviction." 

" Be it so ; I accept the terms. Let us agree that 
there must be something common before there is 
something mutual. Is there not already such? 
Take the tree of which you speak. Do not I love 
it with all my heart and soul in all its root and 
leaves and branches ? " 

" But I do not ; that is just the difference. I 
have never reached that amount of admiration 
for nature which is entitled to the name of love. 
Indeed, I doubt if I could admire the tree at all 



4 o THE LADY ECCLESIA 

unless I believed that somewhere, somehow, by 
some one it was planted. I revere above all things 
the principle of life." 

" So do I ; that is the reason that I revere the 
tree. To me it is living, breathing, inhabited by 
a conscious spirit. There is nothing to which I 
am attracted so much as beauty ; but that is 
because I believe beauty to be the highest mani- 
festation of life." 

" My father would agree with you ; but I am 
bound to confess that I do not. This is one of the 
things in which my faith has yielded to my con- 
viction. I, like you, was brought up to believe 
that the highest manifestation of life was physical 
beauty, and that any defect or deformity was a 
deviation from the divine favour. But I have 
lived to change my mind. To me the noblest 
type of a human soul is a life encumbered with 
these very infirmities, yet refusing to give in." 

" Well, if the infirmity does not prevent them 
from working, they deserve great credit." 

" But I am supposing that it does prevent them 
from working, that it makes them helpless, hand- 
less, from an outward point of view, useless. I say 
that there is a glory in ladenness as well as in 
labour. If these people are able to bear without 
crying, they are in the highest sense heroic. I 



THE INTERVIEW 41 

think there are men who are not called to act, but 
simply to be and to suffer ; if they can do the two 
things, they are wondrously strong. And this brings 
me back to the old subject. You know that our 
house has always had a special interest in the 
valleys. They were originally included in the 
boundaries of this estate, and, although the right- 
of-way has long become common, I have never 
heard that the grant has been repealed. But it is 
not on this ground that I appeal to you. It is not 
because the valleys are mine that I ask your 
intercession with your brother ; it is because they 
are his. He claims the lordship over this island, 
and in point of fact he has it. I never envied him 
the possession so much as now. I think I would 
give all my remaining life to be mistress of the 
island for this single year. I would call it "the 
acceptable year of the Lord " ; it would be my day 
for salvation. Your brother of Palatine has at 
this moment in his hands the fate of the most 
destitute and forlorn among the children of sorrow. 
Will he be true to his trust ? does he know the 
nature of his trust ? He is a great man ; in his 
deepest soul I believe he is a noble man. He has 
bowed his head to the majesty of justice ; will he 
bow to pity too ? The spirits of just men are not 
made perfect till they reach generosity." 






42 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

" You heard his speech yesterday : did it leave 
you in any doubt as to his mind ? You heard with 
what iron determination he consigned to death 
whoever should have contact with the valleys, 
himself included. Do you think he is a man likely 
to depart from his own law ? " 

" I think you have mistaken the spirit of his own 
law. It is not contact with the valleys as such 
that he condemns ; it is contact with the valleys as 
long as they are in a state of plague which involves 
enmity to mankind, and therefore treason against 
the laws of this island. Do not imagine that, if 
the valleys were pronounced free from this pesti- 
lence, your brother would not at once repeal his 
law. Now, I ask, how can any one know when 
the valleys shall be free from pestilence? What 
is to be the sign of their cure ? Can there be any 
sign but the verdict of a physician ? Surely the 
Lord of Palatine never meant to enact that the 
banishment of man from man was to be perpetual. 
Surely he intended it to be only as long as the 
patients' malady. And how shall the length of 
that malady be tested if no medical skill is to be 
admitted into the valleys ? It is for this, and this 
alone, that I plead. I do not ask that you or your 
brother should touch these afflicted forms. But I 
do entreat by all the laws of the heart that they 



THE INTERVIEW 43 

may be touched by those qualified to heal. I ask 
that one or more of your great physicians be 
sent into the valleys to succour, and, if possible, to 
save. I have implored you to carry this petition 
to the Lord of Palatine, to intercede for me with 
him. There is none other to whom I can apply 
but you. The chaplain Caiaphas believes in 
sacrifice at a distance. My father is good and 
kind, but he is entirely guided by Caiaphas. I 
myself cannot go for the reason your brother gave 
you yesterday ; I have the misfortune to be a 
woman. Will you take my place? Will you be 
my representative? Will you carry my request 
and plead my cause ? " 

" And what if my brother should grant the 
request, and decree that the man who goes down 
to the valleys shall be the physician who attends 
your house and mine ? " 

" What ! Philo ? With all my heart." 
" But with all my aversion. If he goes, he shall 
be no doctor of mine. Do you think I want a 
vehicle of contamination between my house and 
the valleys? I have lived all my life in beauty. 
I have pursued the opening flower as persistently 
as the bee. I have followed the track of the 
morning as constantly as the lark. I have never 
been able to brook the sight of deformity. To me 



44 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the symbol of the divine is, and has always been, 
the faultlessly fair. Therefore it is that I come 
to you. As the bee flies to its flower, as the lark 
mounts to its morning, even so come I to you. 
Ecclesia — let me call you so — why will you waste 
time over these shadows? Yours is a dream. 
Mine is perhaps also a dream ; but it is a joyous 
one. Come into my dream, Ecclesia ; come and 
forget the mist and the rain. Come to the singing 
of birds and the laughing of brooks and the 
blooming of roses. Come to the nightless days 
and the endless summers and the careless hours. 
I shall deck for you a home in the uplands, and 
I shall call its name Elysium, and on its doorpost 
shall be written the words, ' There shall be no 
want here/ " 

" And shall the people be there — the people of 
the valleys ? Shall they too have no want ? Shall 
they too have the bird and the bee ? Shall they 
too have the streams and the roses ? If so, I shall 
come." 

" Nay, but the bird would cease its song, and the 
flower would lose its perfume, and the bee would 
hum no more. Nature cannot dw r ell in the presence 
of deformity. Into our Elysium there shall enter 
nothing that is unbeautiful, not even a memory of 
such things. Up on the hill yonder we shall forget 



THE INTERVIEW 45 

all about the valleys — their existence, their very 
name. They shall fade from our remembrance 
like a phantom of the night, and there shall be 
only day — day for evermore. Come, my Ecclesia ; 
come and forget." 

" Nay, it cannot be ; you love not what I love. 
There is a barrier between us which no bond can 
join. Yet believe me," I continued, taking his 
hand in mine, " I am not ungrateful to you. I feel 
that I have gained something from you — bright- 
ness. Before I knew you, my life was too grave, 
too sombre. You have taught me that there is a 
loveliness in lustre and a beatitude in outward 
beauty. And although I cannot give up my 
cause, I feel that you have strengthened me for 
my cause by importing brightness into it. I feel 
that sorrow cannot be cured by sadness, but that 
they who serve by night must themselves have 
seen the day. Therefore I thank you even while 
I bid you farewell. We may not meet often in the 
days to come, for our ways lie apart, and there are 
no divergences like the divergences of mind ; but 
may the God of my fathers bless you, and, in every 
hour of your sorrow, may your valley be illumi- 
nated by the sun in heaven I " 



CHAPTER VI 
A VISION OF THE NIGHT 

I HAD told Hellenicus that I had gained by 
his acquaintance a brightness which my 
nature lacked. Yet the night which followed 
the day of our last interview was perhaps the 
saddest I had known. It was not the parting with 
Hellenicus. I had told him that to me a mutual 
affection was inseparable from a common sym- 
pathy, and it was true. I had no sense of a 
lost love ; but I had the very poignant sense of 
a lost hope. I felt that an anchor had been 
lifted to which my ship was moored, and that 
I was once more at sea. The weight of the 
valleys pressed upon me as I lay down on my 
nightly pillow, and my heart was heavy with 
their load. Far into the night I remained awake, 
listening in the silence to the sighs that seemed 
to ascend. Gradually the impressions became 

more indistinct. The voices of Hellenicus and 

4 6 



A VISION OF THE NIGHT 47 

his brother began to blend with the plaint 
of the valleys. I found myself wondering why 
the two men had not been rolled into one. I 
found myself asking, If Caesar had the gaiety of 
Hellenicus, and Hellenicus the power of Caesar, 
would it make a perfect man ? I found myself 
answering that it would not, that something must 
be added to both. I found myself inquiring what 

that something could be ; and then 

Was it morning already ? The light was stream- 
ing in at the windows. I thought how grand the 
sea must look in that light ; I must get up and 
gaze on the sea. I rose, made my toilette, and ran 
into a room whose casement fronted the ocean, 
expecting to behold the usual sight of water 
everywhere. Suddenly I stood aghast ; there was 
land in the midst of the ocean. The space that 
yesterday was a blank had been filled up in the 
night. Clearly, vividly, in the morning sun, there 
broke upon my sight the vision of this intermediate 
shore between the waters and the waters. And 
hark ! was that only the murmur of the waves ? 
No ; there were voices from the opposite bank ; 
and as the ear has more longing than the eye, 
I strained to listen. Nearer and nearer came 
the voices, until at last they swelled into a chorus, 
and by-and-by the very words became audible. 



48 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

" Glory to God in the highest, peace and goodwill 
to men," rolled through the liquid air ; and ever 
and anon the refrain seemed to be caught up by 
increasing voices, till the whole atmosphere became 
vocal with benignant song. 

And as I looked out upon the sea a new wonder 
met me. Between my eye and the land there 
was seen the form of something which had 
emerged from the shore. What was it ? Was 
it a raft, or a boat, or a sail ? Such things had 
been often seen before, but not coming from a 
new world. Its course was evidently not aimless. 
It was crossing from shore to shore. It was 
making for a definite point. It seemed to be 
coming right in the line of my father's house. 
Nearer and nearer it came ; clearer and clearer 
it grew. At last a revelation broke on me ; the 
form was human. A man was walking on the 
sea. He came with fearless step, with rapid step. 
His feet seemed to leave a track of radiance 
behind them such as one sees in the chain of 
moonlight on the waters. I was half fearful and 
wholly fascinated. I dreaded to look, but could 
not withdraw my gaze. The vast ocean was to 
me concentrated into a single point — the course 
of that marvellous figure. 

Suddenly a mist fell, and the whole scene was 



A VISION OF THE NIGHT 49 

covered. The sea was blotted out, and the oppo- 
site land, and the form on the waters, and the 
radiance that followed him. I burst into tears 
because of the cloud that had robbed me of the 
beautiful vision, and I covered my eyes with 
my hands that in fancy I might see it still. And 
after I had waited thus a long time, I began to 
experience a strange sensation. I felt that I was 
not alone in the room. There was a presence 
beside me, living, breathing, moving. I heard 
the beating of my heart for fear. Then slowly 
I withdrew my trembling hands from my eyes, 

and I saw 

How shall I describe what I saw ? We can 
only describe that to which we have an analogy. 
But this had no analogy to anything I had ever 
known. There stood before me an image of 
superhuman beauty. The form was that of a 
man — I had almost said that of a careworn man ; 
it looked as if it were carrying a burden. But 
the face — how shall I speak of it ? Never in this 
island, never in my waking, never in my sleeping, 
had I seen anything like it. It was perfectly, 
ravishingly, blindingly beautiful. I think the 
beauty came all from within. It seemed to me 
that the glory of the outer vision had been ex- 
tinguished just to show that it was not indebted 

4 



So THE LADY ECCLESIA 

to anything outside. If I had been asked to 
define its type, I would have been puzzled. The 
moment you caught an expression, it seemed to 
turn into something else. One glance suggested 
my father ; another recalled Hellenicus ; a third 
brought to my mind the Lord of Palatine. It 
was a countenance which had in it a blending 
of sunlight and moonlight, of power and gentle- 
ness, of all the things which are supposed to be 
contrary. And, as I gazed, I lost my self-posses- 
sion. My soul seemed to melt within me ; I fell 
at his feet with a great cry of rapturous pain. 

In a moment he had taken me by the hand 
and lifted me up. Then he spoke, and a thrill 
went through me. Fancy a blending of all the 
congruous and harmonious instruments in the 
world of sound, each taking the appropriate part 
of the sweetest symphony. The words were 
human words, island words ; but the accent was 
quite foreign, unlike what I had ever heard 
before. The strangest thing of all, however, was 
that he addressed me by my own name. 

" Ecclesia," he said, " I have heard the cry of 
the valleys, and have come over the sea to help 
them. I have come to form a band of ministering 
spirits : will you be one of these ? " And I 
answered, " Yes/' " Will you go down to the 



A VISION OF THE NIGHT 51 

valleys to-night ? " he said ; " will you be par- 
taker of my cross ? " I answered, " I have no 
key, and the gates are shut." Then said he with 
the sweetest of smiles, " But I have ; I have the 
keys of death and of the grave, and I have set 
before you an open door." 

With these words he faded from my sight, 
and with a great sob of sorrow I awoke, and lo, 
it was all a dream. I am ashamed to confess 
that the first thing I did on waking was to cry 
actually. Why wasn't it true, O my God, why 
wasn't it true ! Ye who have seen your dead 
in dreams and then waked to find it illusion, I 
know you will sympathise with me. Mine was 
not a vision of the past, but a vision of the future ; 
none the less, while it lasted, was it dear, and 
my heart was sore for the want of it. I wept 
long and bitterly ; I watered my couch with 
my tears. " Come back to me, come back to 
me," I cried ; " come over the sea again on the 
wings of the morning. Thy imaginary light 
has put out all real ones. Thou art to me 
above the brightness of the sun. Couldst thou 
have such power if thou wert not a reality ? O 
thou beautiful, come back, come back." 

It was the custom in our house, as it was that 
of our clan, to begin the day with a service of 



52 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

prayer. When I presented myself for the morning 
orison, and when the retainers of the immediate 
domicile were gathered in the large hall, I was 
painfully impressed with a strange experience. 
I felt that from every side I was being looked 
at. In strangers I might not have wondered ; 
I would have deemed it simply impertinence. 
But why should those look at me who knew every 
feature of my face, who saw me daily, to whom I 
was as familiar as the light or the air ? After the 
service I was confirmed in my impression. My 
father came up to me and said : " Ecclesia, what 
is the matter with you ? You are looking divine 
this morning. Have you been using a cosmetic ? 
I thought you despised such things. I never 
saw you look so well — never." 

I was curious to see what I was like. I re- 
membered the mirror w T hich had been the first 
revealer of me to myself. Perhaps it would now 
be a second revealer ; I would go and try. So 
I went into the room of my earliest revelation, 
and drew near the messenger which had told 
me the first secret about myself. It had made 
me start before ; it made me start more now. 
Whose face did I see? It was mine, and yet 
it was not. The old features were there — the 
old windows of the house ; but there seemed to 



A VISION OF THE NIGHT 53 

be a new tenant within. It was as if my soul 
had gone out in the night, and another soul had 
entered in its room. What was that face I saw 
blended with my own ? I had seen it before : 
where ? One moment, and the truth had broken 
on me ; it was the face of the man of my dream — 
the man who had come across the sea. And 
the more I gazed, the more the likeness grew. 
Every instant I was increasingly riveted, and, 
ever as I looked, the elements of the old counte- 
nance became absorbed in the light behind it. 
The face of the dream was vanquishing the face 
of the waking day, and I beheld myself with 
speechless wonder transformed into the same 
image from glory to glory. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE STRUGGLE OF REASON AND FAITH 

" \ A H^ y° u S° down to the valleys to-night ? " 
V V The refrain sounded in my ears all 
through the day. Was it a command? Yes; a 
command in a dream. What had I to do with 
that ? True it had been a powerful dream ; it 
had affected my very countenance : yet all this 
could be done from within. And were not the 
waking facts against it, contrary to it? Had not 
the Lord of Palatine shut the gates ? Where could 
I find admission to the valleys? Again there 
came the refrain of these other words : " I have the 
keys of death and of the grave, and I have set 
before you an open door." But was not this also 
a bit of the dream, and therefore a bit of the 
delusion ? I knew the gates had been shut with 
that measure of certainty with which I knew the 
Lord of Palatine. If a voice should tell me that 
one of them had been left open, ought not that to 



THE STRUGGLE OF REASON AND FAITH 55 

be a waking voice? Could a sound in the inner 
ear equal the thundering accents of the Lord of 
Palatine ? Surely I was getting weak ; surely I 
was verifying the president's judgment when he 
denied my sex a right to speak in the assembly. 
Let me forget this sentimentalism ; let me turn 
my thoughts to living things. 

"Will you go down to the valleys to-night?" 
still the words kept sounding, sounding. " I have 
set before you an open door " ; still the promise 
kept ringing, ringing. Day could not drive it out ; 
work could not weary it ; the commonplace could 
not kill it. By-and-by I began to ask myself if 
I had not misstated my own case. Was not the 
real question whether God speaks at all? If He 
does, why should He only speak in the day ? 
Had not one of our poets said, " My reins also 
instruct me in the night season " ? Had not 
another said, " He giveth to His beloved in their 
sleep"? Why not? If the will of God could 
come to me through the impressions of my waking, 
why should not it come to me through the im- 
pressions of my dreaming ? Was there any more 
weakness in the one belief than in the other ? If 
a human messenger had told me in broad daylight 
that I would find an open door, would I not go 
and try ? The thing would be equally unlikely — 



56 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

no less and no more ; yet I would assuredly try. 
Why should I not try now ? Wa,s not this the real 
weakness, the true mark of a feeble mind — to 
believe in nothing that 1 did not see? Then a 
great resolve came over me, and I cried : " O 
thou beautiful, be my reality for one day. Though 
ever after thou shouldst be a delusion, this one day 
be thou my guiding star. Be real to me for a few 
brief hours. Put out the sun again, and shine on 
me with the matchless radiance of yesternight. 
This once I shall assume thee to be true, blindly, 
unreasoningly, but intensely. Lead on, and I 
shall follow thee ; I shall go down to the valleys 
to-night." 

Many who read these memoirs will be surprised 
at the nature of this struggle. It will seem to 
them that I had never yet suggested to myself the 
main difficulty. The sole question with me had 
been whether a gate could have been left open. 
Should not the first thought have been, " What if 
the gate should be open and you should go 
through ? " Was not the punishment death ? 
Had not the Lord of Palatine decreed that who- 
soever should transgress these barriers should be 
guilty of treason and pay the penalty with his 
life ? Was not the question of an open door after 
all a subordinate one ? No ; to me it was not. 



\ 



THE STRUGGLE OF REASON AND FAITH 57 

Strange as it may seem, the prohibition of the 
conclave had never weighed with me. I had not 
forgotten it, not for a moment ; but it had paled 
before another fire — the fire of enthusiasm. The 
sight of that ideal countenance had not only put 
out all actual beauties, but all actual horrors. If 
I knew that that countenance was real, and that in 
sober truth it had come from a land beyond the sea, 
I felt that for me at least there could be no more 
death. My struggle was not with the weakness 
of the heart, but with the pride of the intellect ; 
when the pride of the intellect was conquered, 
my struggle was over. 

I do not know how I got through that day. 
The worst days to get through are not the darkest ; 
they are those whose interest lies at the end of 
them. I know that during the intervening hours 
I was very uninteresting to my fellow-beings. We 
are all uninteresting when we have a secret which 
we cannot share. It was not the fault of my new 
faith, but of its unsharedness. None the less it 
exposed me in the meantime to the reproach of 
aloofness from common things. My father rallied 
me that my thoughts were so far away. The 
chaplain Caiaphas jestingly remarked that "the 
Lady Ecclesia must be dreaming of the sacrifice 
to be made for the valleys." The jest jarred upon 



58 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

me. I thought it singularly bad taste in a minister 
of the altar, and at another time I would have told 
him so. But anger was overborne by a grim satis- 
faction. By the irony of fate the man was speak- 
ing the truth — a truth dead against himself. If 
my dream was true, the sacrifice had already been 
taken out of his hands, out of all human hands. 
If my dream was true, God Himself had sent a 
victim to the altar. While man was meditating 
how he could avoid contagion, Heaven itself had 
plunged into the pestilential stream. The chaplain 
had pronounced his own sentence, and he did not 
know it. He had been deposed from his office. 
He had been superseded by a larger ministry — a 
higher, holier, purer ministry ; that which was 
perfect had come, and that which was in part 
was done away. The words of a condemned man 
could not make me angry. 

At last the shadows began to gather, and my 
heart beat quicker. The hour was coming ; it 
would soon be here. It had been my custom, 
when the working day was done, and no social 
pleasure called, to spend a portion of the night in 
the library in private reading and still more private 
thinking. Thither I repaired — not now to study 
manuscripts, but to observe the sky. I watched 
the last survivals of the February day ; I longed 



THE STRUGGLE OF REASON AND FAITH 59 

for them to go, yet feared to see them depart. 
By-and-by the latest had faded, and it was night 
— moonless night. The moment had arrived. 
With a palpitating heart I stole into my room. 
I dressed myself in dark attire, yet I did not 
labour to make myself uncomely ; they who visit 
the sick ought not to be outwardly repellent. 
Then I fell on my knees, and said, "Be with 
me, thou beautiful, be with me " ; and I rose 
calm. A few moments more and I was out on 
the great plain under the sky of night. The 
die was cast. The world of girlhood was behind 
me, and for the first time in my life I stood 
alone. 

There were many approaches to the valleys ; 
but for me, within the short time at my disposal, 
there was only one available ; it was that which 
we called the Sympathy Gate. If this failed me, 
the next in nearness was that popularly known as 
the Gate of Display, because it ushered into a 
slope not steep but prolonged, and affording the 
possibility of a carriage drive. But it was five 
miles distant, and therefore to me impossible. 
Everything depended on the first gate. Was it 
open or closed ? All the probabilities pointed to 
the latter. It was within a mile of my father's 
house ; it was under his surveillance ; it was likely 



60 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

to be well guarded. And over against this was 
what? A voice in a dream. 

With trembling footsteps I approached the goal. 
It was the crisis moment of my life. It had all 
the elements of tragedy in it ; yet there was neither 
fire, nor wood, nor burnt-offering. It was a theatre 
without scenes, an act without persons, a drama 
without speeches. I know now what I did not 
know then — that the destinies of this island were 
quivering on a thread, suspended on the purely 
inward conviction of one frail soul. The tragic 
hours of God lie below the surface, and have never 
been dramatised. Was my ideal living or dead ? 
— that was the question. If dead, no mother 
weeping over the bier of her child was so bereaved 
as I. 

And now I was at the gate. There are moments 
in which suspense is dearer than reality. I wished 
there had been still a few steps to go. I covered 
my eyes with my hands as I had done in my 
dream when the sun went down ; faith was low, 
and reason was high. Then with a wild, despairing 
look I faced my destiny ; and with a great cry 
I startled the silent air. It was open, it was 
open ; the gate of brass was burst ; my ideal was 
alive — alive for evermore. 

But this was not all. A new surprise awaited 



THE STRUGGLE OF REASON AND FAITH 61 

me. Not only was the valley open ; it was lighted 
— lighted in the place of its deepest gloom. That 
place was the middle. The beginning of the 
descent was easy, and the end was easy. But 
the centre was steep, precipitous, dark, mantled by 
overhanging crags. I would have greatly feared 
this spot, had there been room in my heart for any 
fear but one. Now the danger was over ; it was 
revealed only as a ship of sorrow that had passed 
in the night, as a thing of horror that might have 
been. Over the central and steepest part of the 
decline a flaring torch was suspended. It seemed 
as if some hand had attached it by a string to 
the impending cliff and left it blazing there. I 
marvelled at the mysteries of God. Five minutes 
ago, any spectator would have said, " To what 
purpose is this waste ? " A torch flaring for no- 
body, a light in the descent of a prohibited valley, 
burning for the sake of nothing — it seemed a 
weapon for the unbeliever. And now it was all 
explained, vindicated. It had been waiting for 
me, for me. It had no mission for its immediate 
hour ; it was useless for the time of its kindling ; 
but it was waiting for me. I, Ecclesia, latest scion 
of the oldest clan, youngest survival of a race that 
was ready to die, had been privileged to explain 
the seeming waste of God, had been privileged 



62 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

to tell why a flower had blushed unseen, why a 
light had glittered unregarded. " I have set before 
you an open door " had been the words of my 
dream ; they were now the words of my experi- 
ence. God had prepared a table in the wilderness 
ere yet were found any guests to banquet there ; 
but He knew that the wilderness would in time 
break forth into singing, and that the desert would 
soon be vocal with the myriad claims of man. 



CHAPTER VIII 
IN THE VALLEY 

AS I approached the close of the descent I 
became aware of the old sounds which had 
formed such a strange antithesis to the letter of 
Hellenicus. Not that the murmur was any longer 
so widespread and diffused. Night brings some 
relief even to the despairing, and the deepening of 
the shadows had brought to the valleys partial 
repose. Yet there were whole masses of men and 
women, and particularly in the valley nearest to 
my father's house, who had refused to find such 
rest Night could not damp their agony of fear ; 
weariness could not exhaust their passion of 
enmity. The plague was upon them — upon all 
of them who were in strife ; but they did not know 
it Each had looked into the face of his brother 
and seen it there. The illusion would have been 
wonderfully helpful had there been love — it would 
have been a source of ministration ; but when 

<>3 



64 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

there was only fear, it became deadly and per- 
nicious. Each had beheld in the other the centre 
of his danger ; each had tried to expel the other 
from his life. As I entered the valley, that which 
I had only conceived became a sight ; and the 
seeing surpassed the conceiving. I shall never 
forget the scene, never. It will always remain in 
the background of my memory as the saddest 
picture in all the gallery of life — a picture, lurid, 
ghastly, repellent, indelible in its impression of 
degradedness, and deeply humbling to the pride 
of man. 

Shall I try to describe what I saw? The 
multitude had divided into groups according to 
the centre of their interest — that is to say, of their 
enmity. The valley had been brilliantly illumi- 
nated in order to detect the blemishes. Naphtha 
fires blazed, lamps of oil impended, and the face 
of every man was revealed. There was not a 
corner of the expanse which did not light up its 
own tragedy. On one side was a little band, 
united for the moment in a dreadful enterprise. 
They were making frantic efforts to stone a young 
woman of singularly fair countenance. Undoubt- 
edly she bore on her forehead the mark of the 
pestilence, but it was not that mark which they 
saw ; it was the mark of their own pestilence. 



IN THE VALLEY 65 

The object which they were trying to strike was 
inside rather than out, and therefore hitherto they 
had failed to hit their victim. On another side 
was a man frightfully marked by the pestilence ; 
they called him a leper. He had been driven 
within the walls of a graveyard by a party hardly 
distinguishable from himself in extent of dilapida- 
tion. The object was evidently to keep him in 
quarantine until starvation relieved them of their 
guard. Here was a little child with the door of 
its own house shut against it. It had no sign of 
the pestilence on its person ; but its parents were 
infected, and imputed to it their disease. There 
were two brothers, fishermen, retainers on my 
father's estate, who bore on their countenance clear 
traces of the calamity, deliberately trying to set 
fire to a collection of hamlets, whose inmates they 
believed to have caught the contagion. But why 
prolong the recital ? It is sickening even to re- 
member, and I have to record diviner things. 

When I entered upon the scene, my presence 
was quite unnoticed ; everybody was too busy to 
think of vie. But it was impossible I should 
remain a mere spectator. It was a matter of life 
and death, and there was no time for calculation. 
My eyes turned first to the case of the most imme- 
diate personal danger — that of the young woman 

5 



66 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

who was being stoned. I felt she must be saved 
at all hazards. I dashed forward between her and 
her assailants, and stood confronting the men 
and their missiles. " Do you know me?" I said. 
" I am the daughter of Moses ben-Israel — the head 
of your clan, some would say the head of your 
island. Look at me. I am untouched by the 
pestilence, and I shall stand between you and this 
woman. You do not need to hurt her as long as 
I am here. You have nothing to dread. I shall 
be the wall betwixt you ; I shall keep this woman 
in the rear ; I shall part you from all contact ; 
nothing shall come to you until it has first come 
to me. Are you satisfied ? " 

I spoke to gain time, and to produce a temporary 
calm. For a moment I seemed to have succeeded. 
The group fell back a pace and dropped their 
implements of destruction, while they kept their 
eyes steadfastly on me. By-and-by a voice was 
heard, " She has got the plague too : don't you 
see the black mark ? " This was not true in point 
of fact, but it soon became a reality in belief. The 
suggestion was eagerly and instantaneously caught 
up, and the faces again grew menacing and lurid. 
Once more the missiles were raised, but no longer 
for the old object. In the place of the former 
woman stood I — the would-be mediator. I had 



IN THE VALLEY 67 

tried to be the wall of partition between the 
oppressor and the oppressed. I was now in my 
turn about to be made the victim. The sensation 
I felt at that moment is indescribable. I never 
knew before what it was to meet death face to 
face. I was meeting it now in its most ghastly 
dress. Around me were the eyes of a crowd 
glaring with incipient madness, beholding in me 
the loathsomeness that existed in themselves, and 
eager by one stroke to blot me out from their 
presence. The ground seemed to reel beneath my 
feet ; the lamps appeared to flicker ; the naphtha 
fires grew pale. I saw the stores lifted ; I heard 
the voices raised ; I felt, rather than beheld, the 
arms outstretched to throw. I breathed a prayer 
to the God of my fathers ; I heaved a sigh for the 
vanishing of my dream ; I stood awaiting the end. 
Suddenly they fell back ; the missiles dropped 
from their hands ; the glare faded from their eyes ; 
and their glances turned aside from me. I followed 
the direction of their gaze. The next instant I 
uttered a cry — the first that had escaped me 
during that scene of terror. Over against the 
adjoining naphtha fire stood the form of a man not 
numbered among the sons of the valley, and his 
figure and face were that identical face and figure 
which I had seen in the vision of yesternight. 



6S THE LADY ECCLESIA 

When he came, how he came I know not ; I was 
under the shadow of my cloud, and did not see 
it. But there he stood in all the radiant beauty 
of my dream. I would have known him amid ten 
thousand ; I could have identified him in a multi- 
tude which no man could number. I had never 
seen him before with the waking eye ; yet my 
first sight was not so much knowledge as recog- 
nition. It was quite old to me, familiar, almost 
commonplace. It was not the surprise of entering 
a palace ; it was the joy of reaching home. I felt 
that I could have gone up to him and said, " You 
have come at last ; I have been waiting for you 
a long time." 

Then he spoke ; and again the voice was old ; 
it was the voice of my dream. He raised it no 
higher than he had done in my dream, but it 
penetrated in a moment every corner of the field. 
And instantly it seemed as if a cord had been 
thrown round the multitude to draw them into one. 
The isolated groups broke up and began to move 
towards the voice. The parties surrounding the 
graveyard abandoned their post and left the leper 
free. The incendiary fishermen gave up their 
efforts to set fire to the hamlets. The house door 
which had been barred against the little child was 
thrown open, and the parents came out and the 



IN THE VALLEY 69 

child went in. By-and-by this whole section of 
the valley, representing the wants of all the valleys, 
and therefore the radical wants of man, was 
gathered around one common centre — the object 
of my dream, the goal of my waking hours. 

Hitherto it had been the music of his voice that 
had attracted, rather than the sense of his words. 
It was a voice so unlike the valleys, for that 
matter so unlike the uplands, that its power pre- 
ceded its meaning. But now its meaning began 
to appear. If I attempted a direct repetition of 
what he said, I would fail ; but I would fail, not 
for the reason you would imagine. I would fall 
short, not in magniloquence, but in simplicity. If 
/ had spoken, my words would have been too fine ; 
they would have passed, not into, but over the 
valley, and would have been heard in the halls of 
Hellenicus. But this man's voice touched the 
ground ; it kindled the lily of the field. Shall I 
try to reproduce the spirit of what he said ? It 
was very original as well as very simple — should I 
not say because very simple ? I would have ex- 
pected him to have begun by strains of commisera- 
tion. He struck just the opposite keynote. He 
told them that they had special advantages in 
belonging to the valleys — advantages which the 
men of the uplands did not possess. He told 



70 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

them they were nearer to the vision of the sky 
than those who lived on the hills. He said there 
were colours that could only be seen by the cloudy 
day, treasures that could only be reached by the 
lowly heart, banquets that could only be enjoyed 
by the hungering spirit It was not more satis- 
faction they required ; it was more want. He had 
come to cure the pestilence by creating more 
want. From the land beyond the sea he had 
brought a draught which increased thirst. If they 
would partake of it, they would see a strange 
thing ; all the marks would leave the faces of their 
comrades and appear on his. And then there 
would happen something more wonderful still, 
which he would not tell them yet, for he wanted 
them to find it out for themselves. It was the 
constant draught in the country from which he 
came ; without it angels themselves would grow 
weary. Would the men of the valley try? 

Then from the vast assembly there rose a great 
and simultaneous " Yes " ; and the majestic voice 
resumed. He asked if there were any men in 
that crowd who would volunteer to bear round the 
draught to their brethren. It would be very easy 
for him to do it alone ; but he wanted them to 
have a part in their brothers' cure. Within this 
golden chalice there was a liquid, any single drop 



IN THE VALLEY 71 

of which would transform life and banish every 
personal pain. Though the cup was small, it 
was amply sufficient to supply the whole multi- 
tude ; for, unlike other cups, its contents did 
not decrease as they were expended. If there 
were any among them who were willing to be the 
first partakers and the first distributers, let them 
come to the front. 

For a moment there was a silence. Then a 
buzz of excitement arose. Twelve men stood 
forward from the crowd. Our sensational moments 
are the seasons when others for the first time act 
differently from ourselves. This was a sensation 
in the life of the valleys. Twelve men by a 
voluntary act of independence had marked them- 
selves out from the mass. I knew them, every 
man. They were nearly all of the fisher class, and 
had for years supplied, not only this valley, but my 
fathers house with the fruits of the sea ; and what 
I was chiefly struck with was the fact that amongst 
them were these very two incendiaries who, a few 
moments before, had been making such deadly 
efforts to destroy the dwellings of the plague- 
stricken. 

Then came an imposing ceremony. The crowd 
was again parted — this time into twelve groups ; 
and they were served in turn by each of the 



72 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

volunteers. Each carried the chalice through his 
allotted sphere, and then passed it to the nearest 
in rotation. I confess that my own eyes were 
riveted on the central figure ; I rather felt than 
saw the ceremony. It was impossible for me to 
withdraw my gaze from that face so divinely 
beautiful ; as the ceremony progressed, it became 
increasingly impossible. Ever as the chalice 
moved on from lip to lip, it seemed to me that 
the fashion of that countenance became altered ; 
it began to take upon itself the likeness of the 
pestilence. Every moment it grew more marred, 
and I wondered. And I wondered most of all at 
the fact that with all the marring there was no 
change in his beauty. I have seen men and 
women whose loveliness was undimmed by the 
meanest apparel. This was a stage beyond. 
Here was a man whose loveliness was undimmed 
even by a marred visage. I think at that moment 
he reached to me his climax of beauty. Whether 
the contrast helped it I know not. Does the 
charm of moonlight on the waters lie in the fact 
that there is brightness in a sphere which ought 
to be troubled ? I cannot tell ; let us leave it to 
the artists and pass on. 

For, indeed, my own heart was getting troubled. 
A great fear began to creep over me. What would 



IN THE VALLEY 73 

the multitude say when they saw the marred 
visage? As yet they were too tremulous to see 
anything ; the crisis of the experiment pressed on 
their hearts and blinded their eyes. But what 
would it be when the experiment was over? 
Had not that maddened crowd seen their infirmi- 
ties in the face of each other even when they 
were not there? The divine beauty of this man 
had precluded such a deception. But now, with- 
out tarnishing his beauty, the marks of the valley 
were really there. What would that crowd say if 
their eyes lighted on the marred visage ? Would 
they not cry for his blood as they had cried for 
the blood of the leper, as they had cried for the 
blood of the spotted woman, as they had cried for 
the blood of the suspected village ? Oh, if I could 
only get the marks to come on me ! If by any act 
of will, if by any form of sympathy, I could draw 
them from that dear face to mine, how gladly, how 
proudly would I die ! These few minutes were to 
me an eternity as I strove to steal his cross and 
hide it in my own bosom. Never before, never 
since have I passed through such an agony. I 
seemed to be pulling at the bars of fate — 
frantically, hopelessly, but still increasingly. No 
human soul ever prayed for deliverance as I 
prayed for the gift of death. " Father of mercies, 



74 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

clothe me in his likeness, that I may die in his 
room " ; it was the voice of my heart, it was the 
cry of my soul. And still the chalice moved on, 
and the visage grew marred. One strange thing 
was passed ; the stranger thing was about to 
come. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE PRIESTHOOD OF HUMANITY 

THE cup had come to the last man; the 
first without the last was not to be 
perfected. It was a solemn moment, a tragic, 
tremendous moment On that final draught the 
fate of the valley depended. Every eye was 
turned on the terminus ; even my own wandered 
from their central gaze. There was the stillness 
or death around, or rather that stillness with which 
one contemplates the crisis between life and death. 
What would that crisis bring? Would it be 
night or day ? Would it lift the valleys into 
splendour, or would it leave them in deeper 
shadow — deeper from that very promise of the 
morning which had flattered and failed? 

The last man had tasted ; the chalice was 
withdrawn. There was an instant of great silence 
— silence that might be felt. My heart died 
within me. I think, in the moment of suspense, 

75 



76 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

we instinctively give the balance to fear. I knew 
this stillness could not last; it must be broken 
either by jubilee or by execration. If the latter, 
what then ? The passions of an infuriated crowd, 
maddened by unfulfilled prophecy, reckless from 
deluded hope. Nay, what was I myself to feel 
in such a case? Were there not passions which 
I, a daughter of the uplands, might well share 
with the men of the valleys? It was not death 
from their hands I feared ; it was life with my 
own. To have my ideal shattered, my prop 
broken, my dream a delusion ; to find that, after 
all, there was nothing higher than myself in this 
island, nothing to rest on, nothing to lean on, 
nothing to hope on ; to find that the land be- 
yond the sea was but a phantom of the brain, 
the messenger self-deceived, the help imaginary ; 
to go back once more, however unselfishly, to the 
search for a merely island home, — my God, sooner 
would I die. 

Suddenly I was interrupted in my meditation. 
A great shout rent the air. It came from the 
back row ; the last were the first. It was caught 
up by those immediately in front. It was re- 
verberated by the group still nearer. At length 
the valley was ringing with one common cheer — 
loud, long, heart-moving. It shook the silent 



THE PRIESTHOOD OF HUMANITY 77 

night with the breath of a new spirit. The 
fires appeared to blaze more brightly ; the lamps 
seemed to vibrate to the swell of an unwonted 
breeze. By-and-by the voices became articulate. 
From different sides of the valley came a medley 
of utterances, not successive, but simultaneous, 
and expressing in varied forms one common joy. 
"We are free, we are free." "The burden is 
lifted." " The pestilence is over." " The marked 
faces have been washed white as snow." "See 
that man whom we drove into the graveyard ; 
he looks now as fresh as you." "Look at that 
woman whom we tried to stone ; I don't see a 
spot on her beyond what nature gives to us all." 
" There are the two fishermen shaking hands 
with the people they wanted to set fire to; they 
have found out their mistake and are sorry." " I 
don't see a black mark in all the valley." 

"Yes," cried a voice amid the multitude, and 
I trembled, " there is one among you who re- 
tains the marks of the pestilence ; it is the man 
who has healed you : did he not tell you that 
only by his stripes you would be cured?" In 
an instant every glance was turned on the marred 
face of the stranger. The event which I feared 
seemed to be coming. I saw the streams draw 
together; I saw the wave roll forward. For 



78 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the second time that night I interposed my frail 
person between the martyr and the storm, as if 
an atom could break the force of a torrent. I 
stretched forth my hands in piteous supplication ; 
I raised my voice to cry, " Save him, save him." 
The words would not come — not from me. But 
they were to come from a most unlikely quarter. 
For now there happened that second strange 
thing which the night had foretold. The words 
which my lips could not utter were taken up by 
the very crowd to which I prayed. In a moment 
it all burst upon me ; I had mistaken the last 
movement. The second advance of the wave 
was no longer from the motive of the first ; that 
was hostility, this was compassion. " Save him," 
cried a hundred voices, "for he has been our 
saviour. Is this man to die by our contagion ? 
Is he to die by the neglect of those whom he 
has succoured? Shall we allow him to linger 
in the open sky when we have homes and fires 
and shelters ? The night is late, and his own 
night is upon him ; let him abide with us until 
the breaking of the day." 

" Look at him whom you have pierced," cried 
Peter bar-Jona, one of the twelve who had helped 
to bear the chalice. " Is not this the very picture 
of the man of whom one of your poets has sung 



THE PRIESTHOOD OF HUMANITY 79 

1 He was wounded for our transgressions ' ? Are 
not these marks ours, our very own ? Are not 
the scars of my own house there? Do you see 
that woman in the front? That is my wife's 
mother. She may well press toward her deliverer. 
Half an hour ago she was covered with the pesti- 
lence. Look at her now — as pure as the virgin 
snow. Why? He has taken her wounds. This 
man without spot or blemish has been marred 
for you and by you, Will you let him die ? " 

Then there was great sobbing in the crowd, 
for the people of the valleys do not restrain 
themselves as the inhabitants of the uplands. 
Strong men were choked with emotion. Frail 
women pierced their way through the throng to 
administer help to the solitary sufferer. Some 
ran to their houses to find restoratives. One 
brought a cup of cold water ; another bore 
aromatic spices ; a third carried a box of sooth- 
ing ointment, and actually began to apply it to 
the spots on the face of the sufferer. At this 
stage there occurred a strarge episode. One 
of the twelve men who had borne the chalice 
— Judas Iscariot by name — uttered a voice of 
dissent. " This is going too far," he cried. " Here 
is a woman actually touching the very marks from 
which she has been delivered. It is appalling to 



8o THE LADY ECCLESIA 

see such recklessness. Is it not enough for you to 
be healed without seeking to incur your plague 
a second time ? These valleys have borne suffi- 
cient pain ; let them taste their new-found freedom. 
We are all, I am sure, much indebted to this 
stranger ; thank him, and let him go." 

A yell of execration greeted the hapless speaker. 
The fury of the crowd was again uppermost — no 
longer in the interest of self, but of sacrifice. I was 
glad to see that the cure of the pestilence had only 
transplanted, and not uprooted, their energy, for 
there is nothing so hurtful to the valleys as the 
spirit of apathy. It was a fine sight to see these 
men and women lighted by the anger of love. It 
was too fine for the object of their obloquy. The 
fire in these faces blazed above the naphtha flames. 
There were muttered curses ; there were ominous 
threats ; there were even indications of coming 
violence. The culprit saw it and cowered. He 
turned his back upon the crowd and moved into 
the night alone. Yet I marked then, and I 
remembered afterwards, the dark expression on 
that brow — an expression which cast a gloom over 
the hour of deliverance, and has ever since formed 
a background to each moment of joy. 

And now there occurred a new wonder. Beneath 
the touch of the woman who applied the ointment 



THE PRIESTHOOD OF HUMANITY 81 

the marks faded from the face of the solitary 
sufferer. The expression of pain left his counte- 
nance, and in its room there came a gleam of 
the most exultant gladness I have ever seen or 
imagined. It was to me a new phase of his 
strangely diversified beauty. I had seen that 
beauty already in varied forms. I had seen it 
in majesty ; I had beheld it in tenderness ; I had 
witnessed it in calm ; I had viewed it in storm ; 
I had looked on it in sorrow. But to see it in joy 
was a fresh thing. It was not merely that the 
face had lost all traces of the pestilence. There 
was something on it which was not there before 
the traces came. The mystery lay, not in what 
the ointment had taken away, but in what it had 
left behind. " She has wrought a good work in 
him," cried the crowd. But I asked myself if the 
ointment could have done this. Was it not indeed 
a work wrought in him rather than on him? I 
felt there was something I could not see. I gazed 
into his face and marvelled. 

Then he speke once more, and once more my 
heart bounded. No music ever equalled that voice. 
Shall I try to reproduce it ? I might as well try 
to reproduce the notes of the nightingale. The 
words were like a blaze of diamonds strung on 
a plain cord ; they were at once too high and too 

6 



82 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

lowly for me to imitate. I shall not try to imitate 
them. I shall not even put my own words in his 
mouth as the dramatists do ; I would not like to 
impute my words to him. I shall merely en- 
deavour to state baldly and in the most indirect 
form what seems to me to have been the burden 
of the most wonderfully original discourse I have 
ever listened to. 

He began by stating that he was sure they all 
wanted to know the meaning of that great mystery 
which had met them twice that night — the appear- 
ance on his person, and the disappearance from 
his person, of the marks of their pestilence. The 
explanation was very simple. Between his heart and 
their heart there was a connecting cord. Although 
they seemed to be separate, they were not really so. 
It was impossible that their bodies should receive 
any wound without his being wounded ; it was im- 
possible that their lives should receive any healing 
without his being vivified. It was true — the union 
was not perfect — they could not yet feel his pains 
and joys, though he could theirs. But while the 
completion still lingered, there was enough already 
to make them solemn. They often prayed to God 
to give them gladness : did it ever strike them 
that God prayed to them for gladness — stood at 
the door of their hearts and knocked ? A pestilence 



THE PRIESTHOOD OF HUMANITY 83 

in the island was a pestilence in the universe. He 
had come from a land beyond the sea. Was it 
a happy land? That depended on them. He 
had come to them with clouds because their own 
clouds had affected his atmosphere. They often 
cried for help to the unseen land : were they aware 
that the unseen land cried for help to them ? There 
was joy in that land over the sunshine of a single 
soul. The lightness or the darkness of its day 
depended on the lightness or the darkness of their 
island. Would they help the unseen land to its 
joy ? Would they spread abroad the happiness of 
man ? Would they take away the pain from the 
heart of God by removing it from the souls and 
bodies of their fellow-creatures ? Let them re- 
member that to lift the burden of humanity was to 
lift the burden of God. Were there any in that 
assembly who would continue the bearing of the 
cup, who would bear it into other valleys and into 
other sorrows ? Let each bring his vial and fill it 
with the sacred draught. Were there any in that 
assembly who were willing to be enrolled to lift 
that cross of man which was the cross of God ? 
Were they willing to be ordained to the ministry 
of love — the life of the Eternal? Were they 
willing to impart their healing touch to the least, 
knowing that thereby they did it to the Highest ? 



8 4 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

Let all who would submit to such an ordeal come 
forward and sign their names. 

So saying, he unrolled an enormous parchment, 
which he called the Book of Life. He bade each 
who should come to the front fill his vial with the 
liquid, write his name on the scroll, and depart to 
his home. A great resolve came over me. I had 
been only a spectator ; I would be so no more. I 
too would sign with the valleys ; but, because 
I belonged to the uplands, I would mark my 
humility by signing last. A multitude of little 
vials were brought from the houses. Then a long 
procession filed forward ; first, eleven of the chalice- 
bearers, then an additional seventy. I thought the 
ceremony would never end. My heart beat wildly. 
Through all that night he had never once seemed 
to recognise me. I was hungry for recognition. 
Oh, just to hear his voice say again as it said in 
my dream, "Ecclesia"! As I sat on one of the 
benches in the valley and watched the procession 
move on, I figured in fancy the coming of my turn. 
Would he know me ? Would he greet me ? 
Would he commend me ? I observed that to each 
who came he said a word which nobody else could 
hear. I thrilled with expectation. I too would 
have a word all to myself — a little secret treasure 
which nobody knew but me, and which I would 



THE PRIESTHOOD OF HUMANITY 85 

keep locked up in my heart for evermore. Oh 
the joy of that moment, the maddening, melting, 
morning joy — the picture of the day that was 
yet to be ! 

At last the moment was come. I had waited 
to the end. Was there no trace of pride in my 
humility, no wish to be marked out from the 
common crowd ? Perhaps ; but it was at least the 
pride of devotion. I was the last remaining on 
the ground ; as I moved forward I said, " I shall 
be alone with him' 1 I hurried towards the spot 
where the open scroll was spread. As I went, I 
did not look at the scroll ; I kept my eyes on the 
ground, through the tremor of meeting him. Only 
when I had reached the spot did I lift my gaze. 
With a glad expectancy I looked up to the little 
eminence from which he had addressed the multi- 
tude. He was gone ; the chalice was gone ; the 
scroll was gone : I was alone with the night. 

Do you know what it is to get a heart grief at 
the end of a great joy ? It is not merely that it 
counterbalances the joy ; it annihilates it. Will it 
be believed my spirit at this moment went down 
altogether ? I say it with shame ; it showed how 
far I was from the life I had professed. Had not 
the valleys been healed ? Sad to say, that was an 
aggravation of my pain. Why should he have 



86 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

spoken to these men and not to me ? Was not I 
more ripe for him than they? Had not 1 seen 
him in a dream? In what dream had they seen 
him ? Had they not been wasting the substance 
of their life in riotous living until the pestilence 
fell upon them? Yet for them he had brought 
out his jewelled ring and his best robe, and for 
me there was not a word. Oh, it was hard, hard ! 
My heart was breaking. 

With weary steps I took my journey home. I 
was tired and sick and lonely, and all things were 
changed. The way was longer ; the ascent was 
steeper ; the torchlight was dimmer. My feet 
were impeded by the chill of disappointment ; my 
eyes were blinded with tears. I had been sad 
before, but it was with a holy sadness ; this was 
a grief which needed more of Heaven's help, for 
it was the pride of a wounded spirit. 



CHAPTER X 
THE LAST MADE FIRST 

ECCLESI A, are you ill ? " It was my father 
who spoke. I had returned in time for 
the hour of evening prayer, and the household 
retainers were assembling. I assured him I was 
not. " Where have you been all night ? " he said. 
" I have long felt that you spend too much time 
in consecutive study. The beauty you had in the 
morning has gone out of you. You are no more 
like what you were than a lamp is like a star." 
And when the chaplain Caiaphas came in, he said, 
" You look tired, Lady Ecclesia ; I am afraid the 
sacrificial victim for the redemption of the valleys 
has not been found to-day." And when the ser- 
vants appeared I again saw that they all remarked 
me, but it was no longer with the same kind of 
observation ; there was a touch of pity in their 
glance. 

And now I began to question myself. Why 

$7 



88 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

was it that this beauty of the morning had declined? 
Was it grief that had caused it to fade? Was 
there anything in joy that was more favourable to 
beauty than sorrow ? Had I not looked that very 
night upon the countenance of a man crushed with 
all the sorrows of the valley, and yet supremely 
beautiful ? It could not be grief that had changed 
me ; it must be that I was grieving for something 
wrong. And then it all burst upon me like a 
scorching flame. Was I one whit better than 
Caiaphas? Was I not exactly doing what Caiaphas 
was doing — seeking a priesthood of my own? 
Was I not as selfish as Hellenicus, more selfish 
than the Lord of Palatine? Was I not trying to 
have an ideal all for myself and for no other 
person? Was there one in the room so utterly 
vile, contemptible, mean, low, despicable, as I ? 

It was the custom in our house to attach more 
importance to united than to individual prayer. 
For the first time in my life I thought otherwise. 
When I retired to my room that night, there came 
to me a new experience. I felt that this formal 
worship was no preparation for sleep to such a 
one as I. I felt that the voice of the chaplain 
Caiaphas could not be the closing impression of 
my day. I felt that my prayer must be solitary, 
private, without intermediaries — not read from a 



THE LAST MADE FIRST 89 

book, however sacred, but uttered in the silence 
of the soul 

I went down on my knees and prayed. The 
chaplain Caiaphas would not have called it a 
prayer. I did not feel the least solemn ; I just 
felt my heart throbbing w r ith pain and crying to 
be relieved. I did not even address the great 
God in the heavens. My cry went down to the 
man in the valleys, or whom I had last seen there. 
I did not ask myself whether he could hear me ; 
I prayed not from reason, but from instinct — not 
because I ought, but because I must. I just cried : 
" O thou beautiful one, I have done wrong ; and, 
what is worse, I have been wrong. I have been 
a poor, miserable, selfish creature, unworthy of 
even a glance from thee. I should have rejoiced 
instead of weeping ; I should have thanked thee 
instead of bemoaning. I thank thee now. I 
thank thee for lifting the pestilence from the valley 
and pausing not to look at me. I thank thee that 
last night the men with most disease had all thy 
sympathy, and that I who was comparatively 
whole was passed by. Forgive my meanness, and 
help me to love like thee." 

That was all I said. I had never breathed a 
prayer like it before. It seemed to contradict all 
my past training as to the nature of devotion. It 



go THE LADY ECCLESIA 

surely could not be devotion. Had I not been 
taught that in prayer we should feel how far 
heaven is distant from the sea-girt island where 
we dwell ? But this prayer of mine was dreadfully 
rreverent. It forgot the great God in the far 
heavens. It forgot to remind Him of His majesty, 
His omnipotence, His undyingness. It forgot 
about things above altogether. It just came out 
as if it were spoken to one on a level with myself ; 
nay, a little farther down than I could reach. It 
was terribly simple, profanely short, coming far too 
quickly to the point. I was glad Caiaphas did not 
hear it ; but I did hope it was heard by the man 
in the valleys. 

And somehow, I cannot tell how, there began 
to steal over me the sweetest peace I had ever 
known. It was not like the rapture I had felt 
either in the vision or in the valley. It was some- 
thing which could not come till rapture was past. 
There is a great difference between joy and rest. 
Joy may come before the storm, but rest alone can 
follow it. This was not sunlight, but moonlight — 
not rapture, but repose. Yet there is a charm in 
moonlight that is not in sunlight ; I think for one 
thing it is more revealing. I have no doubt at all 
that peace is more revealing than joy : " He giveth 
to His beloved in their sleep." 



THE LAST MADE FIRST 91 

I was very weary when I laid my head upon 
the pillow. The day had been long — the longest 
in my life. It had been crowded with incidents. 
It had been a series of rapid alternations from light 
to shade, from shade to light again. It had exer- 
cised every power of my nature — body, soul, and 
spirit; no wonder I was fatigued. There came 
over me that delightful sense of abandonment 
with which in our least disturbed moments we 
yield ourselves every night into the hands of 
another and are content that for us time should 
be no more. 

" Ecclesia ! " Clearly through the night air I 
heard the name ; clearly through the stillness I 
discerned the voice. There was no other voice 
like that in all the island. It did not seem, how- 
ever, to come from the valleys. It was nearer ; 
it was within my father's grounds. " Ecclesia ! " 
The call was repeated, more intensely, more 
earnestly, and the direction from which it came 
was more pronounced. I felt that I was called, 
not merely to listen, but to come. The moment 
this conviction broke on me, I lingered not. I 
rose from bed and attired myself in the dress I 
had worn for the valleys ; it was the garb of my 
own humiliation, and I wanted him to meet me 
just in the costume in which my fall had come. 



92 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

My toilette completed, I hurried along the 
corridor. It was unlighted, but somehow that did 
not impede me. I passed on without obstruction, 
without pausing, till I found myself in the open 
air, and in the grounds of my father's house. 
Somehow their appearance was changed. They 
had caught a likeness to the valleys. The naphtha 
fires of the valleys were blazing ; the lamps of the 
valleys were impending. 1 would have thought 
it a continuation of the old scene but for the 
solitude. Stay ! Was I alone ? No ; there he 
stood — the man of the valleys — in the very grounds 
of my own dwelling. There he stood in all his 
peerless beauty. Before him w r as a table with 
writing materials, and in front of him was that 
identical scroll which had been in the valley the 
object of my glory and of my grief. 

I ran across the lawn as I had rushed forward 
in the valley. I was determined I would not 
be disappointed this time. I did not look to the 
ground as before. I sped towards the spot with 
my eyes fixed on the goal, resolved to keep him, 
never to let him go. I indulged in no fancies ; 
I drew no pictures of anticipation ; I just ran. 
Panting, I reached his side. I uttered no word ; I 
made no request ; I only gazed into his beauti- 
ful face. I was struck with something which 



THE LAST MADE FIRST 93 

reminded me a little of the marks of pain I had 
seen in the valleys. I said nothing ; but, in the 
old voice that made my heart leap, he answered 
my thought. 

" Are you surprised, Ecclesia, that some of the 
marks have returned ? Do you know what 
brought them back ? It was your pain. Do you 
remember what I told you — that all the sorrow 
and all the joy of this island is reproduced in me ? 
I caught the gladness of the valleys, and my face 
mirrored it ; then came your cloud into my day. 
And did you think I had really passed you by? 
Do you not know it was the very nearness of your 
presence to my heart that made me outwardly 
ignore you? Do we not speak loudest to those 
who are farthest away ? It was meet to make 
merry and be glad over the valleys, for they had 
been dead and were alive again ; but I had been 
with you even in your dreams. Nay, whence 
these tears ? Let there be no self-reproaches. It 
is all forgiven, it is all forgotten. See, I have 
brought you back the scroll which has been the 
cause of so much weeping. I need no such pledge 
as your signature, for your name is written in my 
heart ; but your testimony may help others ; come 
and sign." 

Then I took the pen, and was about to put my 



94 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

name to the end of the scroll ; but with the 
gentlest of all touches he lifted my hand to the top 
of the parchment. And there I saw that at the 
very beginning of the roll a place had been left 
vacant. The first name signed was that of Peter 
bar-Jona, and between the first and the last there 
were no intermediate spaces ; but above the name 
of Peter there was an unappropriated line ; I wrote 
there, " Ecclesia, daughter of Moses ben-Israel." 

As I raised my head I caught sight of what I 
had missed before ; at the other end of the table 
stood the chalice, and beside it a little vial. I 
made a movement forward. " It is like the scroll," 
he said — " quite unrequired between you and me. 
There are many who are called ; but there are a 
few who are chosen. These chosen ones need no 
chalice, for a fountain runs invisibly from my heart 
into their heart. They always appear to be served 
the last, because nobody sees them with the cup ; 
yet they are the first of all. But though you need 
not the chalice for my sake, fill the vial for your 
sisters and your brothers ; they will not understand 
your invisible fountain, but they will all appreciate 
what the eye can see. Unto them which are with- 
out, life must be revealed in parables." 

When I had filled the vial and tasted it, a 
strange boldness came over me. I felt as if all 



THE LAST MADE FIRST 95 

fear had been cast out of me. A great thirst took 
possession of me. Here was a man who could 
rend the veil and show me what my ancestor 
Moses had died in trying to see. "Tell me," I 
cried — " tell me something of the land beyond the 
wave. I have sought it since I was a child. I 
have stood down by the edge of the sea and 
listened to its murmurs as if they could bring me 
a message. You say you have come from there ; 
give me but a shell from the other shore, and I 
shall treasure it for ever." 

A curious smile flitted across his face. He drew 
from his bosom a golden cross. " These," he said, 
" are the shells that murmur on our shore. Take 
it ; wear it ; keep it next your heart, and you will 
always hear the music of the land you long to see." 
" And is it far away ? " I cried. But I spoke to the 
empty air. He was gone ; he had vanished into 
the night, and on the grounds of my father's house 
I stood alone. It seemed as if he had taken away 
the home-feeling with him. All my boldness 
deserted me. My limbs trembled ; I shivered 
with fear. I stretched out my hands to the appal- 
ling shadows and cried, " Light, light, light." Im- 
mediately the prayer was answered ; morning 
struck my eyelids ; I awoke ; it was a dream. 

Yes, it was a dream ; but of a very peculiar 



96 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

order. That things were not what they seemed to 
me I do not doubt. That the thoughts which 
passed through me were clothed in very inadequate 
shapes I firmly believe. But I have proof that the 
process was not wholly inward — shall I not rather 
say, not wholly confined to myself? I brought 
something out of my dream which I did not take 
into it ; I was richer this morning than I was last 
night. I speak the truth of God ; I lie not. I 
declare in the presence of the All-seeing — let 
philosophers explain it as they will — that in my 
hand was the very vial which I had filled with the 
sacred draught, and on my breast was the very 
cross through which I was to hear the music of the 
other shore. 



CHAPTER XI 
NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD 

WE were just completing the morning meal, 
of which we always partook together — my 
father, the chaplain Caiaphas, and I. My father 
was congratulating me on the return of my good 
looks, and was endorsing his views on the in- 
expediency of much study. Caiaphas was insinuat- 
ing that the studies would do less harm if they 
were less secular. I was listening to both with an 
averted interest, which sprang rather from a sense 
of duty than from any spirit of undutifulness. 
For the first time in my life I had the uncomfort- 
able feeling of seeming to be what I was not. I 
was not troubled in my conscience, but I was 
greatly troubled in my consciousness. I was 
deeply persuaded that I was right ; I had chosen 
my part, and I had no regret. None the less, I 
felt that I was keeping a secret from my father 
— a father to whom in the olden times my heart 

7 



98 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

had always been open. It was the first barrier 
to my household peace, the earliest cloud in my 
domestic sky. 

Suddenly words and musings were alike cut 
short. Through the morning air there ran the 
blast of a peculiar horn, only heard in the island 
at times of great crisis, and always conveying 
the same signal — alarm. It was never blown for 
individual troubles, only for cases of common 
danger. It had not sounded when the pestilence 
had been proclaimed in the valleys, for the valleys 
were not held to have any necessary connection 
with the uplands. This must have been deemed 
something more serious. Like the blast which 
had summoned the great assembly, the signal was 
propagated from one horn to another, each taking 
up the message where the compass of its pre- 
decessor seemed to be exhausted. It appeared 
to descend from Palatine Hill, and to increase in 
volume as it came. Presently a horse's hoofs were 
heard in the grounds. There was evidently some- 
thing which specially concerned our family. My 
father and Caiaphas started from the table and 
hurried into the courtyard. A messenger rode 
forward to the front of the house. He handed 
a letter to my father. " From the Lord of Pala- 
tine," he said. " Were you to wait for an answer ? " 



NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD 99 

said my father. " No," he replied ; " the answer 
was to be given in deeds, not words." 

When the messenger was gone, my father broke 
the seal. As he read I watched his expression ; 
it was grave. When he had finished, he turned 
to me. " Summon the household," he said ; " this 
is a matter of vast and vital importance." While 
I called together the domestic retainers, he con- 
sulted with Caiaphas long and earnestly. At last, 
in the hall where we were wont to assemble for 
family prayer, there was gathered a company of 
eager, anxious, expectant faces. Caiaphas took 
his seat at the head of the table as if he were about 
to resume the morning service ; but the aspect of 
his countenance was not devotional. For a few 
moments he faced the household with a menacing 
look, as if to prolong our torture of suspense ; then 
slowly and coldly he thus delivered himself: 

11 Three days ago the Lord of Palatine made 
a law. He declared the valleys to be afflicted with 
a pestilence which rendered them dangerous to 
the peace of this island, and he enacted that during 
the continuance of this pestilence any communica- 
tion with the valleys should be punished with 
death. He commanded all the gates to be closed 
that lead to such communication, and he solemnly 
asseverated that any breach of this order would 



ioo THE LADY ECCLESIA 

forfeit the life of the offender, were it himself or 
his brother. That order has been broken. Last 
night the valley in front of this house was 
entered ; this morning the Sympathy Gate was 
found open. On the threshold there are clearly 
discernible footsteps ; that which was done in 
darkness has been brought to light. I hold in 
my hand a letter from the Lord of Palatine. It 
breathes deep surprise and strong indignation. 
It is not the indignation of a man who has received 
a personal injury, but of a legislator who has seen 
his law broken. He has heard in this act the cry 
of treason against the government of this island, 
and he has demanded an expiation. The sacrifice 
for the valleys is likely soon to be made." 

He paused, and the faces of the household grew 
ghastly. Then in gentler words my father took 
up the strain. " I would fain hope," he said, " that 
things are not so bad as the Lord of Palatine 
deems. The keys of the Sympathy Gate are not 
in my hands, nor in yours ; the Lord of Palatine 
himself holds them. I do not believe that any 
one of you has the ability, if he had the will, to 
make a key. My own opinion is that by some 
oversight this gate at the first was not properly 
locked. It is deeply to be deplored that such 
a thing should have occurred on our side of the 



NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD 101 

valley, but I feel convinced that it does not 
originate here. Is there any man among you 
who can testify that any hour, either yesterday 
or the day previous, he saw the Sympathy Gate 
open ? " 

But all the testimonies were on the other side, 
and they were affirmed i'with great positiveness. 
One man declared that he had passed the gate 
yesterday morning, and found it fast locked. 
Another said he had seen it at mid-day, and 
marked how completely it was closed. A third 
affirmed that he had passed it at five in the 
afternoon, when the shadows were rapidly deepen- 
ing and the night was falling fast. He was aware 
of the existing law, and he had deemed it his duty 
as well as his interest to see that his side of the 
valley was guarded. He was prepared to take 
solemn oath that any interference with the valley 
must have been subsequent to that hour. 

My father looked disappointed. He had no 
love for the Lord of Palatine, and would have been 
well pleased to have found him tripping on his 
own ground. But the eye of Caiaphas lighted 
with a malign joy. He had always been a sub- 
servient tool of the house of Palatine. He had 
uniformly discouraged those family aspirations in 
which my father indulged ; indeed he was an 



102 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

enemy to aspiration of every kind, and greatly 
feared the leaping of fences. Accordingly I de- 
tected in him an ill-disguised satisfaction in the 
failure of my father's attempt to shift the blame. 
" You have given," he said, " a most candid testi- 
mony, and one which greatly narrows our field of 
investigation. You have proved that this was a 
deed of the night. Being a deed of the night, it is 
a deed of evil. It has been wrought in the hour 
when men sleep, in the hour when men are blind. 
What is worse, it has been wrought in the heart of 
this estate, in the very centre of this family tree. 
As the chaplain of this house I am concerned with 
its honour. I feel that you are under a cloud, 
that we are all under a cloud. A responsibility 
is laid upon me, and I will not shrink from giving 
my advice. Listen then to what I propose. I 
suggest that this house offer a reward for any 
information which shall lead to the arrest of the 
man who has trespassed in the valleys. I advise 
that the Lord of Palatine should be requested to 
have a placard set up in these valleys, giving notice 
of the reward. I propose that the Lord of Palatine 
should suspend the law against communication for 
one hour only — from twelve to one to-morrow at 
noon. I suggest that any man of the valleys who 
has information to give shall take his stand at that 



NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD 103 

hour on the other side of yon fence where he can 
be seen and not touched. I advise that on this 
side of the fence the inmates of this house should 
gather at the appointed time, fearlessly courting 
investigation of themselves and their surroundings. 
So shall we be washed white in the eyes of the 
Lord of Palatine." 

" And how do you propose," I said, " that the 
placard is to be carried into the valleys ? Do you 
think the Lord of Palatine will consent to admit 
into his own dwelling the contagion which he 
deprecates for the island ? " 

"If the Lady Ecclesia had waited till I had 
finished," he answered with some haughtiness, " she 
would have found that I had amply provided for 
the emergency. There is a deformed beggar in 
the neighbourhood, named Simon, known to all of 
you and supported by your alms. Him shall we 
send down into the valley to post the placard, with 
instructions not to return till to-morrow afternoon. 
By the hour of one to morrow the communication 
shall be closed again, and we shall take care that 
he returns no more." 

" And so," I said, " you shall compel a man to 
bear that cross which you are persecuting another 
man for bearing voluntarily." 

A gleam of lightning shot from the eyes of 



104 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

Caiaphas. He turned to my father. " For nearly 
twenty years," he said, " I have been the chaplain 
of this house and of this clan, and, as law and 
religion here are one, I have been in these 
years the legal adviser of your family. Before I 
came into your service you were my master ; 
when I took your service I became yours, for he 
that ministers in holy things is the lord of all. By 
the irony of fate it has been reserved for your 
daughter to be my first traducer. Never before 
have I been addressed in such insolent terms. I 
am accused of persecuting a hero when I am 
prosecuting a criminal. I call upon you to exercise 
your paternal authority." 

" Ecclesia," said my father, " you forget yourself." 
But his voice was not thunder ; I think he was 
more troubled than angry. 

" Bethink you, father," I said, not deigning to 
address the chaplain, " the man who has gone down 
to these valleys has gone with a motive. What 
motive but benevolence could induce any man to 
go ? It is some one who has heard the cry of the 
weary, and, to bring them aid, has braved pro- 
hibition, law, death. It is some one who feels for 
your people what you and I ought to feel. It is 
some one who, in defiance of popular opinion and 
in spite of legal enactment, has been constrained 



NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD 105 

by the sheer love of man to seek him at his lowest 
ebb and in his most fallen fortunes. Who knows 
but God Himself has interposed to stretch an 
arm of deliverance across the great sea. Let us 
beware, father, lest haply we be found to fight 
against God." 

" Dreams, dreams, dreams," cried Caiaphas, still 
addressing my father, " the dreams which this 
young lady used to foster on the sea-shore, and 
which cling to her as a penalty. I say, this is not 
the arm of the Almighty, but the arm of treason. 
It is the arm of one who has lifted his hand against 
the laws of this island, and has sought to rouse the 
valleys into enmity with the uplands. If any man 
might legitimately desire a change of government, 
it is you, sir. You have claims to be the head of 
a clan which was the original source of all the 
families in the island ; if so, you are ideally the 
island's king. But I ask if such an event as 
happened last night is in favour of your interest 
any more than that of the Lord of Palatine. The 
rousing of the valleys may be adverse to him, but 
is it advantageous to you ? If a nameless adven- 
turer has gone down to the valleys in a moment 
of popular frenzy, if he has gone down in defiance 
of law in order to impress the populace with the 
superiority of need to law, if, as the result of that 



106 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

impression, he has gathered around himself the 
sympathy of the multitude, and if that sympathy 
should take final shape in rising and revolt, will 
not that be more adverse to your claims than any 
domination of the Lord of Palatine ? It will break 
your influence in the one sphere in which you have 
been paramount — the attachment of the lower 
orders." 

He had struck my father on his weak point, and 
I saw he had made an impression. I hastened to 
counteract it, or rather to turn it into a new 
channel. " Yes, father," I said, " he is right ; he 
has spoken truly. Your influence has always been 
paramount among the labouring and the laden, 
among those who toil and spin. It is this which 
makes you different from Hellenicus, different 
from the Lord of Palatine — I would say greater 
than they. I ask, will you sacrifice this influence ? 
Will you stand before this island, before all ages 
as the champion of those who would oppress the 
valleys? Will you allow it to be said by con- 
temporaries, by posterity, that Moses ben- Israel 
offered a reward for the apprehension of the man 
who had tried to help the helpless ? It is not the 
bribe that I deprecate. I have no fear that any 
man in the valleys would be so mean as to take it 
I accept to the full the chaplain's test; I shall 



NOT PEACE, BUT A SWORD 107 

meet him at noon to-morrow ; we shall all meet 
him. But, as your child, nay, as a part of yourself, 
I protest against that which would dishonour you. 
I protest against this reward being offered by the 
head of the clan in the capacity of head of the clan. 
If it were a matter of private enterprise, I would 
have nothing to say ; if it were the public act of 
the Lord of Palatine, I would have nothing to say ; 
but the official deed of Moses ben-Israel it will 
never be." 

Everybody was startled. My father was startled ; 
Caiaphas was startled ; I myself was the most 
startled of all. I could not understand the boldness 
of my own words ; it seemed as if some one were 
dictating to me. " Ecclesia," said my father, 
" where have you got your gift of tongues ? I am 
convinced ; you have prevailed — prevailed or once 
even over Caiaphas. I accept the arrangement of 
Caiaphas in all respects but one ; the reward must 
not be offered by the head of this house." 

" Then," said Caiaphas, " I offer it myself as a 
private individual, in the interest of that which I 
believe to be religion. The arm which has inter- 
vened to promote dispeace in a household hitherto 
full of harmony cannot be the arm of the Almighty." 



CHAPTER XI L 
IN FRONT OF THE ACCUSER 

IT was the next day at noon, and all my father's 
house had gathered in the grounds. The 
Lord of Palatine had accepted the proposal of 
the chaplain ; the reward had been placarded in 
the valleys. My father was there, and Caiaphas, 
and I ; all the domestic retainers were there ; 
there was a full representation of our family tree. 
It will surprise the reader of these memoirs to 
learn that of all the party I w r as the only un- 
concerned spectator. The reverse might have 
been expected. I alone knew the secret. I alone 
knew certainly that these valleys had something 
to disclose. I alone had evidence that the scene 
of the pestilence had been actually invaded. Nay, 
I was myself one of the very parties for whom 
the law was in search ; if any one was guilty, I 
was. Yet there was not in my mind a tremor 
of anxiety as to the futility of the result. I had 

ioS 



IN FRONT OF THE ACCUSER 109 

no fear that the valleys would betray the man 
who had been their benefactor ; and if they did, 
I had no fear that one so great could be betrayed. 
To associate him with the danger of death was 
impossible. I could think of him as suffering ; 
it was there I had seen his highest beauty. But 
suffering was a form of life ; the very greatness 
of his pain might be measured by the great- 
ness of his vitality. Death was a negative thing, 
a powerless thing, a thing remote from either 
pain or joy. My hero could not die ; he could 
feel, he could weep, he could groan in spirit ; 
but he could not die. I laughed in my heart 
at the attempt to track him. 

And here, while we are waiting at the fence, 
and my narrative is for a space suspended, let 
me answer a question which, I am sure, must 
be pressing on the mind of all who shall read 
these pages. Doubtless it will seem to many 
that my conduct throughout this episode has 
been pre-eminently unsatisfactory. They will 
say : " Knowing yourself to be one of the agents 
in this revolt from existing law, and professing, 
as you do, to be an admirer of the deed, why did 
you not confess it ? " I answer, " Because I was 
an admirer of the deed." Looking back on every 
hour of that and the previous day, I protest 



no THE LADY ECCLESIA 

solemnly that there was not a moment in which 
I was not prepared to lay down my life for my 
convictions. I declare before God that in the 
white glow of my emotion I would, like one of 
my ancestors, have forgotten the pain even of a 
fiery furnace. But what then of the valleys ? what 
of the work of that man who had to me taken 
the place of the divine ? Was his benevolence 
to be interrupted by a premature disclosure, that 
I might enjoy the luxury of self-sacrifice ? Was 
I to be allowed the selfish pleasure of expressing 
my devotion, when by its expression the gates 
of charity would have been shut for evermore? 
My confession would have exploded the mine 
of latent love. Ye who talk of the dread of 
martyrdom, I would have you to remember that 
love's greatest martyrdom is the prohibition to 
sacrifice. I would have you to know that the 
most drastic moment the heart has to bear is 
the moment of its own restraint, and that its 
tears are never so bitter as when it is com- 
pelled to swallow them. My time of deepest 
sacrifice was precisely the moment when I 
made no sign. 

A quarter of an hour had passed. The eyes of 
Caiaphas were straining towards the gate of the 
valley. My thoughts were far away. I was so 



IN FRONT OF THE ACCUSER in 

sure that nothing was to be expected that I had 
forgotten where I was. Suddenly Caiaphas cried 
out, " he comes ! he comes ! " I started. I felt 
like one who had been walking in a fit of ab- 
stractedness and struck against something. I 
thought it must be a delusion : who could have 
come on such an errand ? I followed the direc- 
tion of the eyes of Caiaphas. And truly, emerging 
from the Sympathy Gate of the valley, I saw the 
shadow of a human form. It came nearer, and 
the shadow took substance ; it was a man. It 
came nearer still ; it was a face I knew. It 
approached the boundary-line ; and then in a 
flash I recognised him ; it was Judas Iscariot. 
Strange as it may seem, I had never thought 
of such a contingency. I wondered now that I 
had not thought of it. I remembered the scene 
in the valley. I remembered his effort to check 
the rising enthusiasm. I remembered his adverse 
reception by the heated crowd. I remembered 
the malign expression of his countenance as he 
slunk into the night ; I said to myself, " This 
man could tell." And then for the first time 
there flashed upon me another thought; 1 too 
had been seen in the valley — seen by this man 
of meanness. I experienced more tremor in the 
anticipation of my own betrayal than in the 



ii2 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

threatened betrayal of him whom I idolised. I 
had no fear that he could be taken even should 
he be disclosed. What I did fear was that my 
discovery, my arrest, should strike terror into 
the valleys, and paralyse on the very threshold 
the influence of that beautiful life whose con- 
tact had promised them the dawning of a new 
day. 

" You have answered the placard," said Caiaphas, 
addressing the slouching figure, not without an 
accent of contempt. 

" Yes," he replied, " I have obeyed the summons 
of your most holy office." 

"You have information to give as to the 
valleys ? " 

"I have." 

" Were you, the night before last, in the presence 
of any man who was a stranger to you ? " 

" A man ? I doubt if it was a man." 

" No quibbling. For your own safety you have 
already confessed too much without confessing 
all. What stranger did you see in the valley the 
night before last?" 

" I have no wish to conceal : out how can I 
tell? I know nothing like him by which I can 
describe him." 

" What name did he give ? " 



IN FRONT OF THE ACCUSER 113 

" He gave no name, but the valleys have given 
him a name ; they have called him their deliverer, 
their saviour ; they have called him Jesus ; there 
are some who say i King Jesus.' " 

" Ha ! We begin to see light at last. At last 
the Lord of Palatine will know his friends and 
reward them. And what has this man done that 
they should call him king ? " 

"As I said, I doubt if he be a man ; he has 
cured the pestilence." 

" Cured the pestilence ? How ? " 

" By the power of his own presence. I have 
never seen such a presence. The Lord of Palatine 
is like a child beside it ; his brother Hellenicus is 
like an ape beside it." 

"Silence, miscreant, or you are a dead man. 
You are come here not as his herald, but as his 
accuser. Having told so much, you must tell more. 
When this rebel had persuaded the men of the 
valley that he had healed them, what did he ask 
by way of recompense ? " 

" The signature of a bond." 

" Ha ! A bond of allegiance ; the light is 
broadening, deepening. And w r hat did you sign 
in this bond ? " 

" I refused to sign." 

" Very good ; you were afraid of the punishment 

8 



ii4 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

of treason. And what was the compact which you 
were asked to sign, which others did sign ? " 

" It was a promise to band together for the 
ministration to the wants of the valley." 

" A treasonable guild, in other words. Had you 
any weapons with you ? " 

" None." 

" Were you furnished with any ? " 

" None." 

" Did you take anything away from the secret 
meeting which you did not bring into it ? " 

" / did not ; some did.*' 

"What?" 

" Each who signed the bond received a little vial 
with a mysterious liquid." 

" I see ; a quicker remedy than the sword ; some 
deadly poison. Now comes my crucial question. 
Look round the retainers of this house ; scan 
their features carefully, and tell me if you recog- 
nise any face to-day as one which was present 
there." 

I drew a free breath. Some people overshoot 
the mark ; Caiaphas had aimed too low. It had 
never occurred to him to look higher than a 
retainer. Would Judas keep strictly within the 
compass of the question ? Could I trust him to 
answer just so much, and no more ? No ; God had 



IN FRONT OF THE ACCUSER 115 

given me the chance of escape, and I would accept 
His deliverance. I addressed Caiaphas. " You 
are exceeding your commission," I said. "A 
reward has been offered with the consent of the 
Lord of Palatine, and without further consent you 
dare not go beyond it. You have proposed to 
reach the source of the stream ; you are not at 
liberty to search for its accessories. If you want 
to do that, you must ask an additional warrant. 
How do you know but that in the opinion of the 
Lord of Palatine your search might spoil the search 
of more skilled detectives ? " 

Caiaphas bit his lip, and looked dark. I had 
hit him on his strongest side — his claim to legal 
knowledge. " Surely," he said, " the Lady Ecclesia 
has too much respect for the honour of her house 
to allow it to be interfered with by a technical 
point of law. Can it be that she and I have 
changed places on this question?" 

" I have so much respect," I cried, " for the 
honour of my house that I make here and now a 
deliberate promise. If ever the time shall come 
when you shall lay your hands on him who has 
braved for love the thunders of law, I swear by the 
great God, and by all which I deem holy in man, 
that I shall offer to you, to the Lord of Palatine, to 
all men, a conclusive proof of the innocence of 



n6 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

these retainers. I have reason to know that every 
one of those servants was elsewhere in that 
eventful hour, and had no participation either in 
its joy or in its pain. That is my pledge. Have 
you ever known me to be untrue ? Will you not 
trust me till the time comes ? " 

" Be it so," said Caiaphas ; " and the sooner it 
comes the better." Turning to Judas, he said, 
" Can you give me any indication when and where 
this man is to be found ? " 

" There is a thanksgiving service to-night for the 
cure of the valleys, and at the close he has asked 
Peter bar-Jona and the two sons of Zebedee to 
meet him in the Oilpress Garden." 

" And could you undertake to identify him ? " 

" In a crowd of millions." 

"Then the pestilential valleys must be braved 
for once. Be at the garden gate at the close 
of the hour of evening song. I shall myself 
hasten to bear the tidings to the Lord of 
Palatine." 

The result of the meeting had been to me more 
favourable than I had reason to expect. I had 
passed through the fire, and had come out unhurt. 
I had escaped without shame, without meanness, 
without denial of my convictions. I had not only 
averted the blow from myself, which meant the cause 



IN FRONT OF THE ACCUSER 117 

I professed ; I had succeeded in vindicating even 
against Caiaphas the protective power of law over 
the meanest subject True the man of the valleys 
had been betrayed, tracked, pursued ; but I had 
no fear for him. My hero could not die ; it was 
not possible that death should hold him ; I told 
myself again and again that it was impossible. 
Above all, I had done something to express my 
devotion. In words which none but myself could 
understand, I had pledged myself to make the 
hour of this man's arrest the signal of my own 
surrender. I had promised to my heart that I 
would make the disclosure of my part in this 
transaction contingent on the success or failure of 
the movement of Judas. And, all the time, God 
was preparing a totally different solution, and was 
leading me by a way which I knew not to the 
advent of the crisis hour. I was saying proudly 
to myself, " I shall die for him, for him y for him" 
And God was saying : " Your love for him, 
Ecclesia, would be more devoted if it were less 
romantic. Your offer of surrender is beautiful : 
but is it perfect ? You will come if the sun goes 
down ; very good. But what if only the candle 
shall go out? what if merely the taper shall be 
extinguished ? Have you realised that surrender 
is not complete when it is given only to the 



ii8 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

highest? Inasmuch as you shall do it unto the 
least, you shall do it unto him. You have 
a chapter of the Book of Life yet to learn, 
Ecclesia ; I shall lead you into the palace by 
another door." 



CHAPTER XIII 

PHCEBE 

ABOUT half an hour after my return to the 
house I was summoned by one of the 
domestics. I was told that my maid Phoebe was 
in violent hysterics. She had been brooding over 
the possible consequences of the indoor and the 
outdoor meeting, until the terror had got possession 
of her brain. Twenty-four hours of mental tension 
had done their work. The dim suggestion of 
being suspected had grown into a certainty of 
impending judgment. I felt a pang of remorse in 
my heart. I felt that I had been just a little 
selfish. I had measured the effect of these scenes 
purely by their influence on myself. I had alto- 
gether forgotten that there is a difference between 
a storm to one within the house and a storm to 
one outside. I had been protected from the cold 
by a warm lining at the breast — the power of a 

great emotion. I ought to have remembered those 

119 



i2o THE LADY ECCLESIA 

who had no such emotion, no such lining against 
the storm. I ought to have remembered how 
much more toilsome the march is when there is 
no music. I ought to have thrown myself down 
into the position of those below me, to have seen 
with their eyes and felt with their hearts. I might 
try to do it still. 

Phoebe was not of our clan. I had received 
her into my service from the house of Hellenicus, 
on whose estate her ancestors had for centuries 
been retainers. She had herself caught much of 
the atmosphere of that house — its habitual search 
for sunshine, and its constant recoil from pain. 
I have often been struck in houses with the 
resemblance between servants and their masters. 
I was struck with it in Phoebe. She was like 
Hellenicus on a lower plane. But sixteen years 
of age, she was younger in mind than in body. 
Her characteristic feature was youthfulness. She 
accepted the sunshine as a right, and received the 
cloud as a breach of faith. She took fine weather 
for granted, and looked upon the overcast sky as 
a personal injury. The result was that when the 
rain did fall it fell heavily. 

It fell heavily now. I found her on the floor 
in paroxysms of terror, w r ringing her hands de- 
spairingly, and sobbing wildly. I turned out all 



PHGEBE 121 

her fellow-servants who had gathered as spectators ; 
I knew that at such times the voice of one is better 
than the murmur of a multitude. I found she was 
oblivious of everything that had happened during 
the meeting. Perhaps it would be more correct 
to say that she had never observed anything. 
There was only one image in her mind — the figure 
of Caiaphas as he asked the betrayer to scrutinise 
the faces of the household. She had come in a 
state of tremor ; she had remained in a state of 
vacancy ; she had left in a state of nightmare. 

I made her sit down on the couch, and talked 
to her soothingly. I had little success. She 
seemed incapable of being calmed. " They will 
think I have been there ! They will burn me, they 
will burn me ! " was her constant cry. It was 
in vain I told her that she had nothing to fear. 
It was in vain I assured her that I had myself 
the power to avert all suspicion from her, that I 
had evidence to prove she was not there. There 
are deeps of suffering that lie beneath all natural 
comfort, and they are by no means confined to 
those sorrows for which there is an adequate 
cause. If you let the nerves go too low, a trifle 
will have the same effect as a tragedy. 

All at once a thought struck me; it was the 
memory of that little vial which had come to me 



122 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

in my dream. Had he not said it would help 
my sisters and brothers ? had I not felt in myself 
its power to make bold? If Phoebe's mind had 
not been a blank to what had happened, it would 
have been a dangerous suggestion ; but it was a 
blank. I would try. I pressed it to her lips and 
made her swallow a few drops. In an instant 
she was calm. The frightened expression left her 
face ; the intelligence returned. By-and-by she 
sat up, and a gleam of interest shone in her eyes. 

"What did the man go down to the valleys 
for ? " she said. 

" I believe he went down to help people who 
were like you — in great distress." 

" And why are they so angry with him ? " 

"Because there was a law made that no man 
should go, and he has braved the law." 

" But why was such a law made ? Was it kind 
to leave the people of the valleys without 
comfort ? " 

" I think not, Phoebe." 

" And wasn't it good of him to go down when 
everybody else stood back ? " 

" I think it was supremely good." 

" And will they punish him for having so much 
love?" 

" If they find him, they will put him to death." 



PHCEBE 123 

Surely they would not do it if they knew he 
had been so kind. I could tell my old master 
Hellenicus, and he would speak to his brother, the 
Lord of Palatine." 

" Do you know what would happen if you did 
that ? " I said this by way of experiment. " You 
would be suspected of favouring his disobedience, 
and would be punished along with him." 

" What should I care for that ? " she cried, with 
a fine flash in her eye. " I think I should like to 
be along with him anywhere." 

I was startled to see how close she had come 
up to myself in a few minutes. " If," I said, " he 
came and asked you to go down with him to the 
valleys to-night, would you go ? " 

" Yes," she said ; and there was a ring of con- 
viction in her voice ; " this night or any night I 
would go." 

"And if you knew," I said, "that by going 
you would suffer, would you do it all the same ? " 

" All the same," she cried ; " would it not 
be grand to suffer with such a man ? " 

Did a pang of jealousy go through me ? Did 
I feel the slightest possible annoyance that a 
poor creature like this should have been trans- 
formed in a moment into equality with myself? 
The heart is naturally so mean, and love is 



i2 4 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

habitually so monopolising, that I cannot be quite 
sure I was altogether free from such a twinge. 
But if it was there, it was at once expelled. 
' Phoebe," I said, " I see this liquid has done 
you good. Keep it by you during the day. 
Use it all if you will ; I shall only ask back 
the little vial, as it is a gift from a very dear 
friend. I do hope it will complete your cure." 

It was a trivial act, but, since I had seen the 
man of the valleys, it was the most solemn I 
had yet performed. Hitherto I had only received 
his influence ; now for the first time I had imparted 
it. Something of his had passed from my hand 
into the hand of another. Little did I know 
how awful this moment really was. Little did 
I dream that I was standing on the brink of 
a tremendous destiny, touching the crisis hour 
of all my life. Little did I guess that the tiny 
vial which I meant to reclaim in the evening 
would never come back to my hand any more, 
and that, when next I should see it, it would 
be But let me not anticipate. 

The day wore on with its rounds and duties. 
My father and I dined alone. Caiaphas had 
gone to carry his report to the Lord of Palatine. 
To me the removal of his presence was always 
the lifting of a cloud ; to my father it was the 



PHCEBE 125 

changing of a view. I invariably remarked that 
when Caiaphas was absent he became more large 
in his sympathies and more tender in his judg- 
ments. To me the memory of this day, whose 
afternoon he and I passed together, will always 
be one of the sunbeams in my life. My secret 
did not press upon me with the same intensity 
as it did yesterday ; I felt that already it was 
half out of my hands. And then the new life 
into which I had entered, so far from dimming 
the old, had lent to the old a golden hue. I think 
I never loved my father so much as that afternoon, 
never came so near to him in the sympathy of 
my heart. Oh, I am glad that on this day, of 
all days, my sight of him was fair, for it was 
the last that he and I were thus to pass together. 
The day wore on and began to wear away. 
At nightfall I went out to the village adjoining 
my father's house. I wanted to call on some of 
the cottagers on their return from daily toil. In 
the old days this would have been my hour for 
study ; but now my heart needed more. My 
father wished me to take Phoebe with me for 
company in the night ; but I resolutely refused. 
I pointed to her nervous excitement. I pointed 
to the clearness of the heavens — to the stars 
shining in their strength, to the silvery moon 



126 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

in the sky and on the waters. I pointed, above 
all, to the love which would come to the people 
from seeing they were trusted by their superiors. 
And the last argument prevailed ; my father let 
me go. I cannot but remark here on what small 
threads our destiny is suspended. If I had taken 
Phoebe with me, the sequel would never have 
been written as it is written. I would have entered 
by my own door — the door I had planned for 
myself. God meant me to enter by His door, 
and He wrought out His purpose by a trivial 
circumstance. Our threads are God's chains. 

I made my rounds in the village and bent my 
steps homeward. It was a gorgeous night, very 
unlike that in which I had made my descent 
into the valleys. There seemed to be a promise 
in the air. We speak almost proverbially of the 
calm before the storm. I suppose the phrase is 
generally uttered in cynicism, to suggest the 
deceitfulness of hope. To my view there is 
nothing in which God is more kind. I do not 
believe that rest is merely or even mainly valuable 
when it comes at the end of the journey. To 
me it is most welcome when it precedes the 
labour of the day. Looking back through the 
glass of memory, I thank God for this night. It 
was a draught of pure water given to one who 



PHOEBE 127 

was about to enter an arid desert. I am told 
of one of my ancestors that he was fed by an 
angel previous to making a journey of forty days. 
Even so feel I to-day. As I survey that dark 
past, and reflect that I have actually got through, 
I thank the All-Father for that evening of strength 
and calm. It seems to me now as if He had 
fed me before starting — fed me with invisible 
food and by an unseen hand. I know that with- 
out this nourishment I never could have borne 
my coming cross. 

Through the clear air there came a sound of 
singing. It ascended from the valleys, and I 
knew what it meant. It was the closing hymn 
of the thanksgiving service. "Be at the garden 
gate at the close of the hour of evening song " ; 
these words of Caiaphas rang in my ears. Was 
I afraid ? No, a thousand times no. My heart 
caught up the old refrain. He could never be 
taken. He was beyond capture, bonds, death. 
He was unfettered by the conditions of this mortal 
clay. He would vanish from the sight of his 
pursuers and resume his path of gold. Oh, what 
a dream they were in, what a delusive dream ! 

I came to the gate of my father's grounds. I 
had left it shut ; I found it open. Caiaphas must 
have returned, He must have come back to tell 



128 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

that he had been baffled. How I should like 
to hear him tell it I ran through the avenue 
with the step of my last night's dream ; I reached 
the house door. Suddenly my heart stood still. 
It was no longer the home which I had left. 
There were torches blazing on the lawn. The 
hall was full of soldiers, and between two of 
them stood a prisoner ; it was my little maid 
Phoebe. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE CONFESSION BEFORE MEN 

WHEN I recovered from my first start, my 
immediate feeling was one of indignation. 
I turned to the captain of the guard. " How dare 
you/' I said, " invade the house of a peaceable 
citizen — a house whose family tree is older than 
any in the island ! " 

" Whom have I the honour of addressing ? " said 
the captain. 

" I am the Lady Ecclesia, daughter of Moses 
ben-Israel ; this is my father," and I pointed to 
him as he stood fronting the group with counte- 
nance pale but calm. 

" I am sorry that I have been compelled to show 
to your father an act of seeming disrespect, but it 
is my office to obey commands." 

" You are under commands to leave this house 
immediately." 

**9 g 



13© THE LADY ECCLESIA 

" These are brave words, my Lady ; but there is 
a power in the island higher than yours." 

" Yes, a wonderful power, a military power of 
the first order, a power that can enter the defence- 
less home of one of its own subjects, a power that 
can surround a girl of sixteen with a band of 
soldiers, and with resistless might carry her away 
to prison. I always knew that the Lord of Palatine 
was great, but I never thought him so strong 
as this." 

The captain of the guard turned to my father. 
" I make allowance," he said, " for the impulse of 
youth ; but I am bound to tell you that the 
language of your daughter exceeds either propriety 
or prudence, and might be used against you by 
one desiring your hurt." 

" Ecclesia," said my father, " I am afraid the 
time has gone by for anger. We are in a very 
critical position. Caiaphas, who has not yet re- 
turned, made his report to-day. What impressed 
the Lord of Palatine beyond everything else was 
the distribution of the vials. He fears they may 
contain either a secret poison or a secret influence, 
and he has given orders to search for them in 
every house of the island, and to arrest all with 
whom they may be found. They have searched 
my house and have found one." 



THE CONFESSION BEFORE MEN 131 

" Here it is," cried the captain, holding up my 
own little vial. " This young woman," pointing to 
Phoebe, " has been caught red-handed, caught with 
this in her possession." 

" And how do you know," I said, " that this was 
one of the vials distributed by the man in the 
valleys ? " 

" The bottle," he answered, " might come from 
anywhere ; it is the liquid that is peculiar. I 
would not, however, have pressed the point if this 
girl had offered any defence, any explanation. In- 
stead of that, she refuses to say where she got the 
vial. She will not even plead a lapse of memory. 
She declines to give any assurance that she was 
not one of the spectators of that infamous scene." 

" But I saw her in this house at seven of that 
evening," cried one of the servants. 

" Ah, yes," said the prisoner ; " but I had plenty 
of time to be in the valley after that." 

I looked at the girl in startled surprise. Was 
this the same being who, a few hours ago, had been 
screaming over an imaginary terror. I never 
dreamed that the effect of the draught would be 
more than temporary. Here she stood, not only 
calm, but almost defiant, rejecting a circumstance 
that would have been in her favour, and simulating 
a guilt which certainly was not hers. What could 



132 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

be her motive ? In a moment it broke upon me ; 
it was to shield me. The instinct of the heart often 
makes us cleverer than the power of the brain. 
Phoebe's brain was not strong, but her heart had 
seen it all. With the piercing accuracy of devotion 
she had put together the scattered threads and 
recognised my danger. I had become to her what 
the man of the valleys had been to me : shall I not 
rather say that he had shone to her through me. 
Her first call to sacrifice had come to her in the 
need of a fellow-mortal. 

And so had mine. It was at this awful moment 
that I first learned the divergence between Heaven's 
way and my way. I had decided in my heart that, 
if ever I should surrender, it would be for him 
— for him personally, individually, distinctively. 
Heaven had decided that he should be represented 
to me by another, and that other amongst the 
lowliest. I was called to give my life, not for the 
man of the valleys, but for this humble maiden, 
this serving-girl, this most commonplace and un- 
romantic of all personages. Nor even for her was 
it a sacrifice that was asked from me. It was 
an act of common honesty, without which I would 
have been the vilest, meanest, basest of mankind. 
Truly the gates of God are not all gates of gold. 

All this passed through the mind quicker than 



THE CONFESSION BEFORE MEN 133 

words can tell, and made no appreciable pause in 
the stirring scene. On my part there was not 
a moment's hesitation, not a breath of dubiety. 
There was only one course to be taken ; it had 
all the pain, but not the merit, of a sacrifice. I 
stepped forward to do the only thing which honour 
could do. Every one looked surprised as I ap- 
proached the captain of the guard. 

" I have something to tell you," I said, " of great 
importance. But before I do so, 1 have an act of 
reparation to perform. I spoke to you just now 
with much rudeness and with marked discour- 
tesy. I had no idea you had so good a case. I 
blamed you for discharging your duty. You were 
right, and I was wrong. Accept my apology and 
forgive me." 

" Do not speak of it, my Lady," he replied ; " it 
was all most natural on your part. I deeply regret 
that you have been put so much about. I can 
assure you that no one suspects you or your 
esteemed father of. knowing anything of this dis- 
graceful business, nor shall any expressions used 
in the heat of excitement ever be retailed by me." 

Did I wince as he uttered these words ? If I 
did, it was not from shame, but from the sense of 
being an unconscious deceiver. It is very painful 
to be received under a false ideal. How absolutely 



134 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

this man had mistaken my position was known 
only to myself, and the fact pressed upon me with 
the weight of a solitary burden. I believe nothing 
hurts a man or a woman like the impression of 
having been deceived. 

" And now," I said, " I must ask you to release 
this poor little girl. Perhaps you think the calm- 
ness and coolness of the demand more aggravating 
than the angry heat. Nay, but never fear ; I shall 
not send you back empty-handed to the Lord of 
Palatine. If I ask you to release this girl, it is not 
because I would rob the law of its penalty. It 
is because I have the proof of her innocence ; it is 
because I have discovered the guilty party." 

A thrill of sensation ran through the hall ; 
my father looked startled ; every servant looked 
ghastly. " She knows nothing about it ! " cried the 
prisoner : " what should she know ? Have you not 
proof enough that it was I ? Have you not found 
the vial in my hands ? Have I not refused to tell 
where I got it? Who else in this house could 
have been with the man of the valleys ? " 

" Dear Phoebe," I said, " those who have been 
with the man of the valleys dare not sacrifice truth 
even for love." 

" Lady Ecclesia," said the captain, " I am aware 
what a painful thing it must be for you to implicate 



THE CONFESSION BEFORE MEN 135 

one of your own domestics ; but, as you have 
yourself said, love must yield to truth. It is your 
duty to your family and to the traditions of your 
house to wipe out any stain that may have occurred 
within its walls." 

" May the stain last for ever ! " I cried. " May it 
spread and grow and deepen until it covers every 
inch of the floor, till there is not a spot within this 
dwelling that is not dyed with the red blood of 
sacrifice ! I am come to make my confession 
to-night This poor girl is innocent as you count 
innocence. She had not the privilege, she had not 
the glory of touching the hand that filled this 
vial ; she only received it from common hands like 
mine. But I — I obtained it from himself ; he filled 
it for me, he brought it to me. He met me under 
the shadow of the night — this man of the valleys 
whom you persecute. He met me in a dream, and 
bade me go down into the vale. He told me he 
had the key to all gates, and that I would find 
before me an open door. I came to the Sympathy 
Gate, and I found it indeed unbarred, and in the 
heart of the dark defile there blazed a torch of 
golden light. I went down, and saw what I shall 
never forget. I saw a man, of beauty absolutely 
peerless, of power seemingly omnipotent. I saw 
him stand in the group of sufferers and literally 



136 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

lift their burdens. I saw the weeping made to 
laugh and the sighing made to sing. I heard 
words that man never spoke to man — so simple 
were they, so human. I beheld the foremost of 
the healed write their names in his roll-book and 
bind themselves to the service of the sad. I saw 
them fill the vials with that mysterious draught of 
which, unconsciously, you are the bearer. He 
would not let me sign, he would not let me taste 
within the valleys, for I was a child of the uplands, 
and the burden of the vale was all its own. But 
when I lay within these walls, he came to me 
again in a second dream. He brought me the 
scroll ; he brought me the elixir ; and I gave him 
my name, and he gave me his cup, and I was 
bound to him for evermore." 

The sensation produced by these words was 
appalling, but it was very different in nature from 
what I had expected. I had expected cries of 
astonishment, voices of reproach, perhaps even 
expressions of personal alarm. In any case I 
expected that the interest would centre in my 
narrative. To my utter bewilderment, I alone was 
the object of solicitude. There was only one 
impression, and it found voice in my father. He 
put his arm round me, and addressed the captain of 
the guard, " Don't you see," he cried, " my poor 



THE CONFESSION BEFORE MEN 137 

child is mad. Her nerves have got above her body. 
Ever since the day of the conclave she has had the 
valleys on the brain. She has thought of nothing 
else, dreamed of nothing else. She was always 
imaginative, this child of mine. When a very 
little girl she used to look out upon the sea and 
figure a land beyond it ; I have heard her say that 
voices came to her from an opposite shore. I have 
had great trouble in getting her to see the advan- 
tages of this island home ; but for her love to 
myself she never would have seen it. And now 
this story of the valleys has set her altogether on 
fire and made every fancy real. Whoever heard of 
an actual vial being given in a dream ? " 

"Yes," said Phoebe, "she must be mad. The 
vial was got from my hands. She says she gave 
it to me. Where then did she get it? It could 
never have come as she says." 

"The prisoner has hit the point," said the 
captain. " If a vial containing a suspected liquid 
were found in the possession of the Lady Ecclesia, 
and if she asserted that she obtained that liquid 
from the suspected source, I wx>uld be bound to 
arrest her on the charge, however incongruous her 
own narrative might be. But in the present 
instance the vial is not found in the possession of 
the Lady Ecclesia. It is found in the hands of a 



138 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

serving-maid. The Lady Ecclesia professes to 
have given it to her, but she has failed to show 
that it ever could have been hers. I have no 
alternative therefore but to consider a preliminary 
case established against the serving-maid and to 
take her into my custody." 

The smile on Phoebe's face was positively 
radiant. My own nerves were in a violent state 
of tension. Those who called me mad had nearly 
made me so. In the meantime the excitement 
rather sharpened than blunted me. I saw that my 
line of self-prosecution had, from a worldly point 
of view, been weak, and I sought another. I was 
determined at all hazards to save this girl. 

" Listen," I said, addressing the captain of the 
guard ; " I shall produce the evidence of a sane 
woman. I shall give you a proof beyond all 
controversy that I speak the words of truth and 
soberness. There is one who both can and will 
tell you that I was in the valley that night. There 
are hundreds who could, but would not ; this man 
can, and will. None of your band will dispute his 
testimony ; you have taken him for your ally, your 
detective guide. He has gone to-night to help 
Caiaphas in his fruitless search. He shall never 
find the man he seeks ; but he can find me. Ask 
Judas Iscariot whether he did or did not see me 



THE CONFESSION BEFORE MEN 139 

in the valley on that night of redemption. I shall 
abide fearlessly by his decision. If he says ' Yes/ 
you will believe in my sanity ; the evidence of a 
man who lives for material gold will be above the 
testimony of a spiritual dream." 

At last I had succeeded in deeply impressing 
the captain of the guard with the gravity of my 
charge against myself. He turned to my father. 
" Your daughter is not mad," he said. " Excited 
she may be, and well may be ; insane she is not. 
It is quite possible she has mixed up the ideal 
and the real, and is unable to assign their due 
proportion to each ; but that does not constitute 
insanity. She has offered evidence which may 
or may not be established, but which, whether 
established or not, is perfectly legal. The Lord 
of Palatine is a born lawyer, and it is evidence 
like this which he solicits. I dare not ignore it. 
I shall therefore release this girl, pending further 
inquiry into the testimony of Judas. Until this 
inquiry is completed I shall make no other arrest ; 
but in the meantime I put a guard round this 
house night and day." 

A deadly pallor overspread the face of my 
father. This was the greatest blow he had yet 
received to his fortunes, not excepting any 
pecuniary losses. He had such a burning sense of 



140 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the honour of his family, and such a conviction 
of the link between honour and liberty, that to 
interfere with the independence of his house was 
to him the calamity of calamities. I think he was 
about to speak. From his point of view there 
was indeed something to say ; if there was not 
evidence to arrest, there was surely as little to 
restrain. But all future discussion was cut short 
by the sound of hurriedly approaching footsteps. 
I knew them ; they were those of Caiaphas. He 
had come home at last ; come home to tell that he 
was baffled, beaten, ousted ; come home to say 
that the object of his search had escaped him as 
the chariot of one of my ancestors is said to have 
escaped the pursuit of death. So I told myself, so 
I had always told myself. There was not in my 
mind, there was not in my heart, one shadow of 
doubt. There are some minds even in common 
life whom we cannot for a moment associate with 
the thought of death. We can think of them as 
labouring, as heavy-laden, as doing any amount of 
work, or bearing any amount of pain ; but not as 
losing power, not as passing into negation. So, in 
an intensely exaggerated form, was it with my 
thought of him. I could believe in anything about 
him that involved life, however painful, however 
tearful it might be. But to think of him as ceasing 



THE CONFESSION BEFORE MEN 141 

to be, to associate him with something which was 
neither pleasure nor pain, neither work nor weari- 
ness, to imagine him as simply passive, inert, 
pulseless, a harp with strings unswept by any hand 
— it was a thing impossible. 

The steps drew nearer. They were not so slow 
and languid as I would have expected from a 
disappointed man ; but I remembered that rage 
often gives one the power of cheerfulness. He 
entered with flushed face and gleaming eyes. 
"Well," said the captain of the guard, "what 
success have you had ? " Caiaphas waved his 
hand. "The sacrifice for the valleys," he cried, 
" has at last been found ; he is taken, he is taken." 
It was the last weight on an already overburdened 
brain. The ground shook beneath me ; my limbs 
trembled ; the faces grew dim ; the lamps went 
out one by one ; there was a sound in my ears 
like the rending of rocks ; I uttered one long, loud, 
despairing shriek, and I knew no more. 



CHAPTER XV 
INWARD WANDERINGS 

WHERE am I ? Where is anybody ? I am 
all alone, lying on the hall floor; the 
very lights are out. Oh, I remember! my God, 
I remember ! Caiaphas brought the news, and I 
fainted. I hear the words still : " He is taken, he 
is taken." I did not think he could be taken ; but 
is he less beautiful to me for that? Oh no. It 
was not for being supernatural I loved him, but 
for being more natural than other people. Who 
should be with him now if not I ? He told me 
that my trouble made a mark on him : why should 
not his trouble make a mark on me ? And it 
does. I hear him calling through the night. " Ec- 
clesia, could you not watch with me one hour ? " 
The words come clearly, vividly. I must go. I 
know the guard-house ; I know where they have 
taken him. I must leave at once. If my father 

comes back, he will not let me go ; he will say I 

142 



INWARD WANDERINGS 143 

am not well enough. But I am. I have stood up 
now ; I am strong ; I am fit for any journey. 

Ah ! it is the same clear night ; every star is 
leading me to him. But it is a long, long way 
I have to go. What if I do not arrive in time? 
" Ecclesia, could you not watch w r ith me ? " I hear 
the words again quite distinctly. Yes, I am 
coming, I am coming. Oh that I had the wings 
of a dove that I might fly to thee and be at rest ! 

" Who goes there ? " It is the voice of the 
captain of the guard. He is standing at the gate. 
I forgot the gate. I forgot that I am a prisoner 
pending the answer of Judas. " Listen to me, sir ; 
I am the Lady Ecclesia ; let me pass but this 
once, and I shall come back. I promise it by the 
house of my fathers. I have great faults, but I 
have never broken my word to living man. You 
know I have not tried to escape the danger of 
this hour." 

What does he say ? Do I hear aright, or is it 
a phantom sound ? I am free ? Judas can testify 
no more ? Judas dead ? Judas dead by his own 
hand ? Judas dead by remorse ? The beautiful 
face too much for him, too haunting for him ? 
Can it be true ? I know not ; but a living fact 
is before me. The gate is unbarred ; the captain 
stands aside ; I am through ; and there rings in 



144 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

memory the refrain of words familiar : " I have the 
keys of death and the grave, and I have set before 
you an open door." 

I am speeding now through the night with rapid 
step. I am impatient, but not weary. It is not 
the length of the way that disturbs me ; it is the 
shortness of the time. I have read that the sun 
once stood still in the midst of a battle ; I wish he 
would arrest his journey in this battle of my heart. 
If I cannot arrive before the dawn, I may be too 
late. If I could only learn how long I have ! See ! 
who is this coming ? Is it possible ? Yes ; it is 
Peter bar-Jona. He must have escaped from the 
valley when the detective party came out ; I 
remember he was to meet him after the hour of 
evening song. He will tell me all about it. But 
why does he run so fast ? " Stop, Peter, stop but 
for a moment ; where have you left the man of the 
valleys ? " What does he say ? He has not been 
with him ? Not with him ? Not with him at the 
evening song? Not with him in the Oilpress 
Garden ? And now he is gone ; he seems afraid 
to be questioned. He is hurrying back over the 
road by which I have come. I wish I could get 
forward as quick as he gets back. 

Whole hours must have gone by ; but there is 
no hint of dawn. A man opened a window a few 



INWARD WANDERINGS 145 

minutes ago and cried, " Watchman, what of the 
night ? " and I heard the answer clearly, " The 
night is far spent ; the day is at hand." Yet I 
see no sign of it. Rather it seems to me as if 
the dark were deepening. The stars are going out 
one by one, just as the lamps went out in my 
father's hall when Caiaphas brought tidings of the 
capture. I can no longer go so fast ; my steps are 
less clear to me. It is not weariness makes me 
go slow ; but the slowness makes me grow weary. 
My heart is dragging my whole body after it, and 
the weight is terrible. I must take out my little 
vial. Oh, I forgot ; I have it no more ; it is with 
the captain of the guard. 

The last star is gone ; it is dark — deeply dark. 
I can go no farther. Let me lie down on this 
little bit of grass on which I tread. It is no rest, 
for my heart is travelling all the time. O Father 
my Father, help me ! I am broken, beaten, 
wounded ; I have none but Thee. Aid me, not 
to quietness, but to movement. Thou hast myriad 
lights in Thy dwelling ; spare me but one. Send 
me but a flicker, but a gleam, but a flash of Thine 
eye across the night. My spirit cannot rest just 
now in green pastures ; it can have no repose but 
in the wings of a dove. 

But God has made me to lie down. I have 

10 



146 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

slept on the green grass, and, spite of myself, I feel 
stronger. Yet there is no change in the night ; 
it is still starless. What shall I do ? Shall I try 
to grope my way until I meet the dawn ? Hark ! 
I hear footsteps approaching — firm, clear, resolute 
footsteps. Who can it be that walks the night so 
quickly, that treads the dark with so little fear? 
He seems to be coming from the direction where 
I am going. Will it be another like Peter bar- 
Jona, who has escaped from the garden instead 
of following to death? He does not appear to 
see me ; he is passing me by. No wonder, in 
such darkness. I shall call to him. 

He has heard me ; he is coming. I say he 
because I am sure it must be a man ; his step 
reveals it. " Pardon me, sir, for detaining you ; 
but did you hear anything of a prisoner who was 
taken to the guard-house to-night ? " 

Why does he not answer ? I listen in vain for 
his voice ; I cannot see his face. But what is this 
warmth that is stealing over me. I feel a garment 
thrown around me, and in the comparative heat 
I learn for the first time that I have been cold. 
I wonder what right he has to treat me as a 
pauper. Am I not the Lady Ecclesia? Am I 
to be indebted to a stranger for common charity ? 
And ib it not presumption in this stranger to give 



INWARD WANDERINGS 147 

me a covering when I ask for an answer ? I shall 
speak again. 

" You seem, sir, to be kind ; but it is not this 
sort of help I desire. I am in search of one who 
was taken a prisoner to-night from the Oilpress 
Garden. Stay, was it to-night? It seems as if 
many days had passed while I slept ; I am not 
even quite sure when I started. But if you have 
come by the main road, you must have heard of 
him. He is one that could not be hid ; he is like 
no one else in the island ; I am sure he does not 
belong to the island. If you have any tidings, 
please tell me ; only say he is untouched by death." 

Still he answers not And now I am trembling. 
What means this silence ? Does he wish to break 
some news to me by degrees ? Does he want to 
prepare me for grief by an inward fear ? See, he 
has taken me by the hand now ; he is leading me 
over the sward. What is this strange thrill that runs 
through me ? Is it memory, or is it hope ? Where 
and when have I felt it before ? It does not seem 
to be quite new. What is this wild joy that is 
coming over me ? Is it only grief that needs to 
be broken gradually ? My blood is tingling ; my 
heart is leaping ; my brain is burning ; they will 
say my mind is wandering. Save me from de- 
lusion, O my Father ! 



148 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

" Ecclesia ! " He speaks, and doubt is gone. If 
he had spoken two minutes sooner, I would have 
died — died of ecstasy. But the bread of joy has 
been broken to me by degrees. I have had the 
sleep, and the footsteps, and the garment, and the 
hand ; and now I can bear the voice. " Speak 
to me again ; say it once more, that I may know 
I am not dreaming. Oh, I have been seeking 
you so long, so wearily ! Can the moment of my 
despair be the moment of our meeting ? I was 
coming to w r atch with you, and you have come to 
watch with me. I might have known you could 
not be taken. I might have known my first 
thought was the only true one. I always said you 
would pass death by like my ancestor, Elijah : 
why was I so foolish as to listen to Caiaphas ? " 

He speaks, and with the sound of his voice 
breaks the long-expected dawn. " Not like your 
ancestor, Ecclesia, this night have I come to you. 
He passed death by ; I have passed through it. 
You start, you tremble : why ? Are you afraid 
to think of me as having had a moment of im- 
potence ? Ecclesia, I had not perfect power in 
your island without that moment. Listen ; I will 
tell you a secret. Until this night there was one 
thing which I had not learned — what it was to be 
absolutely helpless. Do you know how I have 



INWARD WANDERINGS 149 

struggled for this experience, how I have been 
straitened until it has been accomplished? No 
one ever strove to rise as I have striven to descend. 
Men fix their eyes on the height and try to scale 
it ; my aspiration has been to get down. Men are 
in search of perfect knowledge ; I have sought to 
learn what it is to know imperfectly. I have seen 
a great gulf between your island and the land 
beyond. You would not be a step nearer to us 
if you could dry up the sea, if you could touch our 
hands with your hands. What was it to your 
valleys that I stood in the midst of their sorrows ? 
What was it to them that I bore the marks of their 
pestilence ? It proved my power ; that was the 
very thing which to the valleys made me weak. 
They said, ' What is the pestilence to him ? Has 
he the dimness of our eye, and the dulness of 
our ear, and the faintness of our heart? Can 
the same marks make the same soul ? ' And 
truly they were right. I took their cross, but 
not their cup ; their burden, but not their weak- 
ness : my thorn was the thorn of the rose. I felt 
that the rose must die if I would reign over human 
hearts. I felt that except a corn of wheat fall into 
the ground, it must abide alone. Ecclesia, I have 
touched the ground to-night — the common ground, 
the ground where the valleys and the uplands 



ISO THE LADY ECCLESIA 

meet. I have reached the limit of human help- 
lessness, the base of human impotence. I have 
descended the last height that made me more than 
man. I have learned the mystery of mortal 
weakness ; I have all sympathy, and therefore I 
have all power." 

And now I am clasping his hands in the ecstasy 
of possession ; I feel them pierced with wounds. 
" Oh, do not leave me, do not leave me ! Take me 
with you ; I cannot live without you. My soul 
pants for you ; my heart longs for you ; more than 
for the morning I have watched for you. I care 
not where you lead me. I will go with you into 
the meanest hovel, I will follow you into the most 
pestilential valley. To be with you is to be in 
paradise ; to be without you is to be in my heart's 
everlasting fire — unsatisfied love. At however far 
a distance, only say that I may follow you." 

Has he refused ? So sweetly that I hardly 
know it is a refusal " Not yet, Ecclesia ; not yet. 
The place is not ready for you yet. I have still 
to bind the girdle of sympathy which I have put 
round the dust of your island — to bind it to the 
other side of the sea. In my father's house are 
many mansions, and I would not have one of them 
foreign to you, Ecclesia. I would not have your 
eye to rest upon a scene unfamiliar, upon a light 



INWARD WANDERINGS 151 

unsympathetic. I would not have you look at a 
picture which shall have nothing of the island 
home about it. 1 go to prepare a place for you. 
I shall have the house furnished in the old style, 
painted in the colours of memory. Its galleries 
shall have portraits of the past. Its libraries shall 
contain the record of island deeds as they are seen 
from the land beyond. Its music shall repeat on 
perfect strings the strains of long ago. Hold me 
not so fast, Ecclesia ; it is expedient for you that 
I go away. I go to put living waters into human 
fountains, to make a home for you across the 
wave. But think not I shall leave you comfortless. 
In times and places where the island sees me not 
you shall see me. Where the common eye reads 
only land and sea, I shall reveal myself to you. 
In every hour of weakness, in every moment of 
agony, in every season of the sinking heart, look 
up, and I am there. Measure not the distance of 
the waters ; in my land the w r ish is the wing. We 
go in the spirit — quicker than the wind, swifter 
than the light. In the mansions of my Father's 
house all thought is movement, for love is the 
chariot of the soul, and to say, ' I long to be there/ 
is to be there already." 

" But tell me, oh, tell me, what if, when you are 
gone, I awake and find it a dream ? See, the 



152 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

dawn is spreading its gold ; the garish day is 
coming, and the island forms may rouse me into 
lesser life." As I speak there breaks over his 
countenance a beam before which even the morning 
fades, and on my ear there fall words of infinite 
music, " Call that the dream, and this the waking." 

" She will live," said a voice by my side. " In 
all my professional career it is the most marvellous 
recovery I have ever known. I would have said 
a few minutes ago that the boundary of hope was 
past. A week of delirium, preying on a physically 
exhausted frame, gave little promise. But some- 
thing too subtle for my analysis has brought back 
the life from the grave. It has been a passion 
week of storm. The waves have been beating 
against a bank of sand, and the bank of sand has 
conquered." 

I saw it was the physician. " Have I been ill ? " 
I said — faintly, for I felt extremely weak. " Ah ! " 
said the doctor, " her mind has ceased to wander." 
Exhausted as I was, I began to ask myself why 
those who wander in mind are so much less 
esteemed than those who wander in body. We 
value the testimony of travelled people if only the 
travelling be outside. The man who has explored 
every corner of the island, the man who has 



INWARD WANDERINGS 153 

gone farther than his neighbours over the sea, is 
held in great estimation. But if the wandering 
is within, if the mind has left the body asleep and 
has gone to journey on its own account, if we have 
been put to death in the flesh and only quickened 
in the spirit, we deem that our experience has 
reaped no gain. Why ? Surely in either case the 
only question is, Where have we been ? I at all 
events had been on a road which had brought 
me back to life ; nay, which had given me life to 
carry back. I had experienced a peace that had 
passed medical knowledge ; my mind had been 
stayed by its own w r andcrings. There had come 
to me on my way something which had turned 
back the shadow on the dial, which had quickened 
the pulse of life and renewed my term of years. 
It was all from within. But was it therefore untrue, 
unreal ? Might it not well be that this so-called 
week of wandering was indeed the deeper reality, 
and that the island life to which it had summoned 
me to return was but a distorted shadow of the 
night ? 



CHAPTER XVI 
HOURS OF CONVALESCENCE 

YE who shall read these pages, whether ye 
be natives of the island or citizens of the 
land beyond the sea — for I feel that my record 
shall one day be read there — I would have you 
to know the nature of that abnormal experience 
which, during this week of suffering, had befallen 
me. The events of outer life had been presented 
to me backwards ; that is to say, the later had 
been revealed before the earlier. While I lay on 
that couch, prostrate in body and wandering in 
spirit, the actual life of the island had been startled 
by two great surprises. The first was a stroke 
of terror. The man of the valleys had been taken, 
and, with hardly even the formality of a trial, had 
expiated with his life the infringement of a law 
of sin. He had suffered a mode of death which 
had been reserved for criminals of the valleys — 
the cross. To me the idea of a cross had come 

154 



HOURS OF CONVALESCENCE 155 

to suggest majesty. You remember where he 
had presented me with a golden cross — not in 
the valleys, but in the very grounds of my father's 
house. His own manner of bearing it had been 
so majestic that they who condemned him were 
unable to lay him in the valleys ; they made 
for him a grave in the upper soil. 

The act was so sanguinary, so arbitrary, so 
instantaneous, that for a day and a half it took 
the heart out of every man. The island seemed to 
get a simultaneous shock of paralysis, and dawning 
aspiration died. At the end of thirty-six hours 
there occurred a second surprise. Suddenly, to all 
appearance unaccountably, there broke out a blaze 
of enthusiasm. Three men, you will remember, 
had been summoned by the man of the valleys 
to meet him that fatal night in the Oilpress Garden. 
Peter bar-Jona was one. The others were James 
and John, the sons of Zebedee — the same two 
young men whom I had seen in the valley, trying 
to set fire to some cottages believed to be in- 
fected with the plague. When their deliverer 
was arrested they had fled. They had made their 
escape, not only from those who pursued the man 
of the valleys, but from the valleys themselves. 
They were the first w r ho had reached the upper 
ground since the alarm had been given of a 



156 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

pestilence in the vale. All at once, these three 
men were surrounded by crowds — not of enemies, 
but of auditors. They proclaimed that the man 
of the valleys was alive, that they had seen him, 
heard his voice, received his message to become 
the ministers to the wants of man. They asserted 
that, where two or three met together, and partook 
of the sacred vial in love and loyalty to his 
name, they had reason to believe that he would 
be in the midst of them. In a short time there 
met, not two or three, but five hundred ; and 
it was proclaimed in the very heart of the uplands 
that this large assembly had obtained simulta- 
neously and indubitably an apparition of him who 
had been dead. 

These were the incidents of the outside life. 
Now in my so-called wanderings the same in- 
cidents had appeared, but in the opposite order. 
I was in search of one whom I believed to be 
alive ; I found him alive. When I met him in 
the shadows of the night, it never occurred to 
me that it was anything more than the fulfilment 
of my natural desire. I took it for granted that 
he had proved himself incapable of being slain. 
Then came his own startling revelation — that he 
had not passed by death, but passed through it. 
How did that revelation affect me ? With wonder 



HOURS OF CONVALESCENCE 157 

certainly, with awe, perhaps even with a mystic 
dread — but not with depression. I had no doubt 
whatever of either of the facts. I believed him 
to be alive on the evidence of my consciousness ; 
I believed him to have suffered on the testimony 
of his own word. But the life was the present 
fact, the immediate fact. How could I be 
depressed ? If you were to awake some morning 
from a deep sleep, and were to be told that during 
the night you had been subjected to a severe 
physical operation, from which you had emerged 
free from pain and full of vigour, how would 
you regard that operation ? Certainly not as 
a subject for tears. The calamity, whatever it 
was, would be a thing of the past. So was it 
with me. The power of this man resurrection 
had to me preceded the fellowship of his sufferings. 
I had been presented with a leaf of summer before 
I was asked to tread the winter snow. The 
result was that the winter itself was disarmed of 
its sting. It was full of singing birds, redolent 
of the breath of flowers. The event, to which 
a week ago I had looked forward with dismay, 
had ceased to be a prospect of any kind. It had 
become a retrospect, seen from the top of the 
hill and invested with the glory of the sunlight. 
To you, therefore, who shall read these pages 



158 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the thing which surprised my nursing attendants 
will be no surprise at all — the calmness with 
which I received the tidings. They were no 
tidings to me. I only received them in answer 
to my own questions, or rather in corroboration 
of my own assertions. The doctor had forbidden 
any volunteered communication. I was still ex- 
tremely weak. I w r as unable to keep my attention 
long on the stretch. I had lengthened periods 
of sleep, interrupted only by short interludes of 
waking. It would be weeks before I was myself 
again. Sometimes my mind lay passive, and left 
the senses to work alone. I saw familiar forms 
flit to and fro, but I beheld them with a mechanical 
listlessness. My father was in and out of the 
room ; Phoebe was my constant attendant ; many 
of the women I had visited in the cottages gave 
from time to time a helping hand ; but I w r as 
rarely roused to interest. Caiaphas was not ad- 
mitted ; it was feared to provoke a recurrence 
of the old association. Medically I think this 
was a mistake. What I wanted was opposition. 
Everything had gone too smooth. There was 
an over-amount of harmony between the fact 
and the dream. There was needed something 
to gainsay, to interrupt, to impede, something 
to stimulate progress by shutting the door, and 



HOURS OF CONVALESCENCE 159 

rouse me into energy by arresting the sweep of 
the hand. 

In point of fact, my first complete wakening 
into outward interest did begin in this way. One 
day I heard the tramp of many footsteps in the 
grounds below. I asked what it was. Phoebe 
said, " You remember the guard of soldiers that 
was put round the house ? " " Yes," I answered ; 
" but they have no right to be there any longer. 
They were put there to wait for the testimony 
of Judas. But Judas will testify no more. Judas 
is dead — dead by his own hand." You will see 
how completely I had blended the horizon of 
my wanderings with the horizon of the outer 
life — the blue of the sky with the blue of the 
sea. The words of the captain in the dream 
were as real to me as the tread of the soldiers 
in the courtyard. 

" This is shameful," said the doctor. " Any 
reference to the fact of the suicide ought to have 
been carefully concealed from the patient. In 
such cases all morbid topics should be excluded." 

" But, sir," said Phoebe, " no one has spoken to 
her of the matter." 

" She has uttered," said the doctor, " the very 
words which I heard used a few days ago by the 
captain of the guard. How can these words have 



160 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

been repeated by her unless they were first reported 
to her ? " 

How indeed? Yet I am not sure that it was 
wholly supernatural. Who can tell the limits of 
the ear ? Who can say whether, in certain 
abnormal states of mind, sounds uttered at a great 
distance may not be carried to the sense. The 
medical art believes strongly in the laws of nature : 
but have we measured the reach of any law of 
nature ? May it not be that all which we now call 
supernatural may yet be included in the domain 
of law ? 

But to return from this digression. I persisted 
in my question why the removal of the only witness 
had not been followed by the removal of the 
guard. I was answered that the reason was 
unknown ; it could only be accounted for on the 
supposition that some other evidence had tran- 
spired. To me this came like a refreshing gale. 
There is a strength in the sense that our love shall 
be called to prove itself. In my night wanderings 
I had been merely a recipient ; I had gone to 
minister, and I had ended by being ministered 
unto. I had lost thereby something of life's 
stimulus. Premature summer is not good for the 
soul. I had reaped a premature summer. I had 
come to the top of the hill by a road that involved 



HOURS OF CONVALESCENCE 161 

less than the normal amount of climbing. I had 
seen the power of this man's resurrection ; I had 
been no real participant in the fellowship of his 
sufferings. Hitherto I had suffered for him, but 
hardly with him. I had seen the beauty of his 
face even when it was marred ; I had lamented the 
sorrow that marred it ; but I had never felt that the 
same thing should mar me. I had taken his cross 
in compassion ; till the night of my wanderings 
I had not perceived its glory. I awoke from my 
trance with the feeling of its glory. I came back 
to life with an unemployed energy in my nature — 
an energy that waited for resistance to quicken it 
and to quicken me. The sense that the cloud was 
not past was the very thing I needed. It gave me 
what I was losing — an interest in island life. 

Not so thought my father. The thing which I 
counted gain was viewed by him as a very serious 
loss. Day by day as he entered my sick-room I 
saw the cloud deepening on his brow ; and I 
began my new stage of promotion by entering into 
his soul. To this man of long lineage there had 
come the sorest of possible calamities — a blot upon 
his name. It was not the suspicion of complicity 
with the valleys that to him constituted a blot ; he 
could have borne that with more than equanimity. 
It was the guard round his house. His pretensions 

IT 



162 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

had always been high — the highest. He regarded 
himself as by divine right the heir of all the island. 
Who was the Lord of Palatine that he should 
circumscribe his liberty? Was it not enough for 
him to have lost his birthright, his fortune, his 
strength ? Was he to lose his personal freedom 
also ? Was he to become a slave, a captive, a 
household retainer, whose every movement was 
dictated, and whose every exit was watched? 
Surely the cup of his humiliations must now 
be full. 

And, then, the disaffection in the valleys — that 
too had an irritating influence on my father. It 
was not that he disapproved of their attitude ; it 
was his regret that their attitude was not occasioned 
by him* The affection of the valleys had centred 
round a stranger. They had been attracted by a 
man whom they believed to be no native of the 
island at all. Why was he not in the place of that 
stranger ? They were willing enough to take the 
island from the Lord of Palatine — but not that 
they might give it to Moses ben-Israel ; they 
wanted it for the stranger. And for Moses ben- 
Israel it was a hard thing. Ought not the outcry 
to have been for him ? Why should a stranger 
have taken the place which he had always felt him- 
self born to fill ? Was it not of this place that he 



HOURS OF CONVALESCENCE 163 

had dreamed night and day ? Was it not for this 
place he had thirsted as the hart for the water- 
brooks? Was it not his by right — by a grant 
older than any in the island ? Why had this flood 
of enthusiasm risen for another and not for him ? 
Was not the answer clear? Was it not because 
he had neglected his birthright, sold it for a mess 
of pottage ? He had been living in supineness, in 
idleness, in lethargy. He had been dreaming but 
not acting, regretting but not repairing. When 
the pestilence had come to the valleys, why had he 
waited for a meeting of the conclave ? Why had 
he not cast himself down into the afflicted region ? 
Why had not he of all men been the first to pro- 
claim an interest in the welfare of the people — his 
people ? The valleys would have risen in a mass 
and fulfilled the vision of his ancestor Moses. 
Another had stepped down before him ; a stranger 
had secured the prize. 

And then in my father's mind there rose a tragic 
question ; I record his thoughts as the sequel re- 
vealed them. Was it yet too late ? The man of 
the valleys was dead. They said he was alive ; 
that was a dream, and would pass. But the dis- 
content would not pass ; it would be fostered by 
the disappointment. Might he not catch the 
valleys in the rebound ? He had proved himself 



1 64 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

unworthy of their love ; but did baffled love never 
pass from the worthy to the unworthy? When 
the dream had faded, when even at the call of 
fancy the man of the valleys came no more, when 
expectation had knocked at the gates and knocked 
in vain, then at last would come his appointed 
time. Would it not be possible even now to 
utilise this reaction, to accustom the valleys to the 
thought that the head of their clan was by right 
the head of the island ? Might they not be 
brought to believe that the man of the valleys had 
appeared just for the purpose of awakening their 
loyalty to the old tree, and that they could not 
better express their devotion than by resisting the 
rule of the Lord of Palatine? 

So my father brooded ; and, as he was musing, 
the fire burned. Naturally a calm man, the one 
spark in his nature had been ignited by the 
traditions of his race. Till now it had smouldered 
and made no sign. But now it broke forth with 
such a gleam as the day often casts at its setting. 
In those hours of loneliness in which he beheld me 
hovering between life and death, there rose within 
him a red resolve. He would raise the standard 
of revolt against things as they were, as they 
ought not to be. He would turn the passion of 
the valleys into a new channel ; nay, he would 



HOURS OF CONVALESCENCE 165 

make the waters of the old channel minister to the 
new. Where were those men that had emerged 
into the uplands — Peter, James, and John? He 
must meet them at all hazards. He must tell 
them that the man of the valleys had come to 
lift them from the valleys — not to seek their 
personal allegiance, but to waken their allegiance 
to their family and their home. He must ask 
them if a guard round the dwelling of him who 
was the head of their clan was a spectacle which 
they would tolerate. He must appeal to them by 
the past — the old, but not the dead past — the past 
which had inspired their ancestors, and would be 
vindicated by their descendants. It might be that 
the dry bones of the valley would live, and that 
from the region of the shadow of death the resur- 
rection of his house would come. 



CHAPTER XVII 
A SECRET MEETING 

IT was night, and I sat by the fire of my sick- 
room with a bright lamp in front of me. I 
was no longer confined to bed, but was still 
forbidden to leave the apartment. During the 
fortnight that had elapsed since my re-awaken- 
ing to island life I had made strides toward 
recovery. My bodily strength remained weak, 
but my mind had regained its balance, and 
my heart had resumed its interest in common 
things. 

All at once the door opened, and my father 
entered accompanied by three men. "Ecclesia," 
he said, " I have brought these physicians to 
visit you — at least, it is only on that pretext 
that they have obtained admittance. Perhaps 
they may indeed prove physicians to you. They 
have been men of these valleys with which you 
so strongly sympathise. You have heard their 

166 



A SECRET MEETING 167 

names much of late. This is Peter bar-Jona, 
and these are the brothers James and John, the 
sons of Zebedee." 

The three figures before me were each stamped 
with a separate individuality. I have got into 
the habit of describing men by the impression 
their appearance has produced. I never fix my 
mind nor even my memory on that which is 
accidental to them — that which can change. Why 
expatiate on the colour of the hair when it can 
alter in a night ? If I were asked at this distance 
to enumerate in detail the features of the three, 
I would certainly make mistakes ; but their 
different impressions are most vivid. The word 
that of all others would best describe the face 
of Peter is mobile. It w r as its mobileness that 
made it remarkable. Measured by any single 
moment, it would have been commonplace. What 
made it not commonplace was the fact that nearly 
every moment saw it change. It was now grave, 
now gay ; now exulting, now despondent. You 
could not depend on it for a minute ; it made 
prediction impossible. Its variety of expression 
was altogether unlike that of the man of the 
valleys. His was simultaneous ; it revealed many 
phases in one. But Peter's was successive. It 
came in a series of flashes. It w r as not the 



1 68 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

countenance of a universal man, but of one who 
was a different man each moment. The man 
of the valleys made you feel that he had a 
place for all ; Peter made you feel that he had 
a place for you to-day, but would probably reserve 
it for vie to-morrow. 

The two brothers had an expression more fixed 
and definite. It was here and now that I first 
recognised their identity to the two incendiaries of 
the valley. There was indeed in the countenance 
of each much that suggested fire. But it was 
in each a different kind of fire. James was the 
fire flaring up ; John was the fire kept down. 
The face of James expressed the determination 
that was eager to act ; that of John indicated 
the determination that was willing to wait. James 
was passion outward — passion that must relieve 
itself by a blow ; John was passion inward — 
passion that did not need to be relieved, but 
was able to feed upon its own intensity. John's 
was the nobler countenance. It gave the im- 
pression of concealed treasures, of having more 
in it than was seen. It was full of promise. 
One felt in looking at him that, though he 
might begin by kindling fire, he would end by 
suppressing it. 

"I have sent for you," said my father, "to 



A SECRET MEETING 169 

propose the terms of an alliance. This is the 
fitting place for such overtures. You are in 
the presence of two extremes — myself and my 
daughter. / represent the uplands ; the Lady 
Ecclesia has an affection for the valleys. This 
room therefere embraces both sides of the ques- 
tion. For myself, I have already made the 
first advances. I have invited you under my 
roof at a time when the valleys are suspected of 
contagion. I have assumed therefore that under 
the influence of the man you reverence you have 
really experienced healing power. I have chosen 
also a fitting opportunity. My chaplain Caiaphas, 
who would never have acceded to this interview, 
is absent on business. You may speak freely; 
we are alone." 

" Father," I said, " since we are alone, and with 
a view to promote a perfect understanding, will 
you allow me to begin the interview by asking 
your visitors whether they recognise me as one 
who was in the valleys that night?" 

" Lady Ecclesia," said Peter bar-Jona, " we are 
here to make no such statement. That which 
passed in the valleys is sacred to us. The eyes 
of our memory rest but on one form — the man 
who was dead and is alive. Would that mine 
had never rested on another! Your challenge 



170 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

puts me to shame this night You remind me 
that I have forgotten his form in the forms of 
his enemies. I have been the vilest of cowards ; 
I have suffered like a thief, and not like a martyr. 
I fled from the Oilpress Garden — I was going 
to say like a woman ; but pardon me — unlike 
you." And the strong man burst into a torrent 
of weeping. 

"Yes," said John, "we left it to that son 
of perdition, Judas, to accuse his friends. We 
have no wish to be concealed ; but we never 
betray/ ' 

" This brings me," said my father, " to the 
crucial point. Why is it that, when the only 
man that could betray is dead, and dead with- 
out making a sign, I am still a prisoner in my 
own house ? Why is it that there is a band of 
soldiers round my dwelling when the ground of the 
charge against me is removed ? My dwelling, did 
I say ? Is it not your dwelling? Have not your 
ancestors sheltered themselves under the branches 
of this broad tree ? Is not my house even now 
the nearest to the valleys ? Is not the Sympathy 
Gate almost adjoining my grounds ? Why should 
your quarrel not be mine ? I have not looked 
with equanimity on the closing of the vales : 
shall you look with indifference on the closing 



A SECRET MEETING 171 

of my gates? The Lord of Palatine plumes 
himself upon his justice : think you this is 
just ? Is it fair in law, is it right in equity, 
that I, a scion of the oldest house in the 
island, should have that house guarded with 
soldiers when the man who was to accuse me 
is dead ? " 

" Have you then not heard," said John, " the 
ground of this continued watch ? Know you 
not that, when the man of the valleys was taken 
in the Oilpress Garden, there was found on his 
person a parchment roll ? Know you not that 
in this roll there was inscribed a vast list of 
names attesting their love and loyalty to the 
man and to the cause ? Know you not, above 
all, that the title of the roll was the ' Book of 
Life/ and that on the margin appeared the 
motto, ' All things inscribed here shall inherit the 
kingdom ' ? The words to the Lord of Palatine 
sound like treason, and he has given orders to 
examine the roll. Peter's name is the second 
from the top ; my brother and I follow ; if dis- 
covered here, our lives would not be worth a 
moment's purchase." 

" So," said my father, " that is the reason of 
my incarceration. Listen ; let us make the reason 
true. You want in this island to establish a reign 



172 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

of righteousness ; be it so. You want to fashion 
it after the pattern of him whom you call the 
man of the valleys ; be it so. Let him by all 
means be your ideal king. But do you not 
need one to represent your ideal? must not your 
kingdom have a visible as well as an invisible 
head ? The man of the valleys has passed away. 
You could not have an absent king ; the man 
of the valleys would not have wished you to 
have an absent king. He did not ask you to 
follow his person, but to follow his teaching. 
If you would please him, if you would reverence 
his memory, you must set up in this island a 
kingdom sacred to the God of your fathers, and 
a king who has descended from your fathers. 
I offer myself as such. I bring you no super- 
natural lineage ; I have no claim to belong to 
a land beyond the sea. But if it be an advantage 
to be bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh, 
if there be a bond in blood and a sympathy in 
family union, if the traditions of the past be 
dearer than the fancies of the future, it is in 
me that your allegiance should centre this night. 
You have heard in the valleys the voice of a 
man who has called you back — back to the fields 
of your childhood, back to the resurrection of 
your home. Obey that voice, and you w T ill do 



A SECRET MEETING 173 

homage to his cause. Throw in your lot with 
mine, and you will honour the man you serve. 
Instil into the growing crowd which follows you 
that the resurrection you proclaim is a type of 
the replanting of your family tree, and you will 
make this night the dawn of liberty." 

" But," said Peter, " we who seek a place in the 
kingdom of our Father do not seek more liberty. 
What we are in search of is less liberty. We 
would be clothed in more humility ; we would 
take the yoke upon us ; we would tend the sheep ; 
we would feed the lambs. The pre-eminence we 
seek is pre-eminence in serving ; the greatest shall 
be ministers to all." 

"Yes," cried John, "ours is not a kingdom of 
mere order, not even of mere righteousness ; it is 
a kingdom of love. They who would sit at the 
right hand of the man of the valleys must drink of 
his cup and be baptized with his baptism. Their 
regal robes must be washed in blood, dyed in the 
tint of sacrifice. The men in front of our throne 
are the sons of tribulation. They have made their 
red stains white in the glory of love. They lead 
the van because they follow the sacrifice ; they are 
arrayed in spotless garments because they serve 
day and night." 

" But," said James, and his eyes flashed in 



174 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

eagerness, " are we not sons of tribulation in our 
fight for freedom ? Is not our first service to King 
Jesus the liberation of his people? What is the 
object of our sacrifice ? Is it not to be the eman- 
cipation of this island? Is not this sea-girt home 
the sphere of the kingdom ? Can we shed our 
blood more royally than in the place of our fathers, 
for the haunts and hearths of our fathers ? Why 
dream of sacrifice when the act is before us, ready, 
waiting to be done? I sympathise much with 
Moses ben-Israel. ,, . 

" Brother," said John, " your own view is too 
sea-girt. How know you that this island is the 
kingdom for which we are to shed our blood ? 
Listen ; I had a dream last night, so vivid that I 
doubt if it were a dream. I thought I stood on 
the shore, and there was no more sea — only the 
place where the waters used to be. That place 
had become itself a valley, steep to descend and 
arduous to tread, yet making a continent withal. 
There was no longer a separation between our 
world and the other world. Men no longer spoke 
of this as an island ; it was a bit of the mainland. 
They no more thought of God as dwelling in a 
place beyond the wave. There was no wave — 
nothing to divide ; it was all one region. The land 
at the opposite side of the valley was clearly 



A SECRET MEETING 175 

visible, and on all points it glittered in the sun. 
But people never thought of it nor spoke of it as a 
land beyond anything ; it was a piece of our own 
country, a room in our own house, which was now 
the same as the house of God." 

" I do not know that I indulge in dreams," said 
Peter ; " but for me there is sufficient answer within 
the island itself. What reason have we to think 
that the centre of God's care is the house of Moses 
ben-Israel ? If He has set the sun to rule the day, 
it is not because the sun is the centre of His 
interest, but because it is not ; it is only the means 
to something else. Have you heard of this new 
man that has arisen in the midst of us ? I have 
never seen him, but he is drawing crowds. His 
name is Paul. He is not a son of the valleys, but 
of the uplands. He has made a singular profession. 
He claims to have a message apart from us 
altogether. He says that the man of the valleys 
has appeared to him on his own account — appeared 
after death with a quite unique command. He 
has told him that there has been a too exclusive 
attention to that branch of the tree which we call 
our clan. He has asked him to remember that the 
fields of the Lord of Palatine are also white already 
for harvest. He has bidden him cast his eyes over 
the sorrows of those whom we have been accus- 



176 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

tomed to call our oppressors. He has made to 
him the startling announcement that he has a love 
for the house of Hellenicus as well as for that of 
Moses ben-Israel. He has commanded him to 
leave to us the mission of the valleys, and to keep 
his eye upon the cares and griefs of that uppermost 
region which we despise. Does this look as if he 
recognised our claim to a universal dominion of 
the island ? " 

" And does this look like patriotism ? " cried my 
father. " Are their claims equal even in point of 
sorrow to ours ? Are they trodden down like us ? 
Are they circumscribed by limits like us ? Are 
they under prohibition like us ? Look at me, the 
head of your clan. I dare not go out of my 
grounds without a pass. My servants dare not 
leave my grounds without a pass. My visitors 
dare not enter my grounds without a pass. You 
are yourselves within my house by the permission 
of the Lord of Palatine, obtained through false 
pretences. And what shall I say of the valleys — 
the men to whom your leader first appeared? 
Their position is still worse than mine. I at least 
can get out on permission ; they are told that they 
will get no permission. Waive the question of the 
kingdom ; let it be a question of common sympathy, 
helpfulness, humanity. Is there the possibility for 



A SECRET MEETING 177 

a redeeming power any more than a reigning 
power when the gates of communication are shut 
that connect man with man? How shall you 
yourselves find an entrance back into the valleys ? 
Have you not by your very escape to the uplands 
put a barrier between you and your past, and cut 
away the moorings that bound you to the ancient 
shore ? " 

A curious expression passed over the face of 
Peter. For a moment he did not speak ; then he 
drew a step nearer to my father and said in low 
accents : " Hark ! I will tell you a secret. You are 
the father of the Lady Ecclesia, and may be 
allowed to know what is not known to those 
outside our community. The valleys are not so 
forsaken as you suppose. That night in the 
Oilpress Garden the man whom we worship took 
me aside and made me a bequest. He gave me a 
whole set of keys to the Sympathy Gate. He 
gave me not one, but many, that I might have 
power, not only to go in and out myself, but to 
give that liberty to those whom I thought worthy. 
It is mine to bind these gates or to loose them 
according as I shall deem one ready or unready 
to enter in. He who would enter by the Sympathy 
Gate must himself have sympathy. Not every one 
that says, ' Lord, Lord,' is fit to go down into the 

12 



178 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

valleys, nor he that makes lordship the goal of his 
possession. He that descends thither must go 
with a drooping mind — with a heart hungering 
with their hunger, thirsting with their thirst. Not 
every man is fit to bear the keys." 

A gleam shot through the eyes of my father. 
"Will you give me," he said, "an opportunity 
of speaking to the valleys — just one half-hour 
to tell them of the relation between them and 
me?" 

" I cannot, I dare not," said Peter, " for the 
relation between them and you is not one of 
sympathy. You seek not them, but theirs — their 
suffrage, their support. Your compassion would 
be a cloak, your pity a pretence, your interest an 
insult. Your search for their cross would be the 
search for your own crown ; no, Moses ben-Israel, 
I cannot let you in." 

As he spoke his hand had been in contact with 
the inner fold of his garment. As he withdrew it 
something jingled. The keys of the valley were 
there, then — within the room, at the distance of a 
few paces. I saw a strange expression pass over 
my father's face. It was not joy ; it was not 
sorrow ; it was the shadow of a dark resolve. 
" My daughter's health," he said, " makes it in- 
expedient to prolong the interview; but I hope 



A SECRET MEETING 179 

at this late hour you will not think of resuming 
your long journey. My house is at your disposal ; 
rest here till morning." And while they were 
assenting, I beheld again upon my father's coun- 
tenance that shadow which was destined to 
extinguish a star. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
MY NEW CORRESPONDENT 

WHEN the guests had retired, Phoebe came 
into my room bearing a letter. Phoebe's 
spirit of helpfulness had made her a favourite with 
the guard. Although the originally suspected 
party, she had perhaps more liberty than any of 
the household, and even at the decline of day a 
pass was seldom refused her. On the present 
occasion she had been out somewhat late, and had 
been accosted by a messenger, who delivered to 
her an epistle. It was addressed, " To the Lady 
Ecclesia, House of Moses ben-Israel." I opened 
it with some curiosity. It was written from an 
address bordering on the estate of Hellenicus — 
which accounts for the fact of Phoebe's being 
recognised as an inmate of our house. The last 
letter I had received from this region had been 
one that had caused me much pain ; it was the 
offer of marriage from Hellenicus himself. My 

x8o 



MY NEW CORRESPONDENT 



IttI 



eye therefore lighted on the superscription with 
some tremulousness. But any trepidation I felt 
was soon turned into wonder. This letter was not 
from Hellenicus, but from one I had never seen — 
one whose name for the first time I had heard 
to-night — the man Paul. 

He began by introducing himself. He said that, 
though a stranger to me in the flesh, he was united 
to me by a bond more close than that of blood — 
the fellowship in the cause of him who was called 
the man of the valleys. He had heard of my 
meeting with him in the valleys, of my zeal, of my 
devotion. He himself could not claim the same 
origin for his faith. He had never met King Jesus 
in the valleys, never seen him in the vicinity of our 
clan. He did not say it as a matter of pride ; he 
was himself descended from our clan, and felt 
proud of his origin. But, as a matter of fact, his 
experience had always been outside. The man 
that to me had been associated with the valleys 
had to him been linked with the uplands. His 
first sight of him had been after death. He had 
received a revelation all by himself, had entered 
the service by a private door. There had come to 
his ears a new and unheard-of message — that the 
God of Moses ben-Israel had a mission for the 
Lord of Palatine, nay, that in this very hour 



i82 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the Lord of Palatine was fulfilling God's mission. 
It was a message that at first had taken away his 
breath, appalled him, paralysed him. But hour by 
hour he had become familiarised to it. Yesterday, 
it was his penalty ; to-day, it was his duty ; to- 
morrow, it would be his joy. 

And then, with equal originality, the letter went 
on to deliver a sentiment which, to any member 
of our house, would have been the most startling 
of paradoxes. It declared that at the present 
moment the Lord of Palatine was the greatest 
existing barrier to the submergence of the island. 
Why, it asked, were we of the house of Israel so 
eager to get rid of Palatine Hill ? That hill was 
a moral breakwater. It restrained forces which 
otherwise would sweep with relentless violence 
over all that hitherto we had deemed dear. It was 
God's hindrance to the anarchy of human passions. 
Take it away, and wickedness would be revealed 
in open form. It was the only wall which at the 
present moment had strength sufficient to stem the 
tide of insubordinate desire. Its premature re- 
moval would be the greatest calamity which could 
befall the men of this island ; let them beware how 
they sought to undermine it. 

So ran the letter. It made me very uncomfort- 
able. I had an inner persuasion that Paul was 



MY NEW CORRESPONDENT 183 

right. But if Paul was right, my father was wrong. 
I had a disturbing memory of the night's interview. 
I felt, and I felt with pain, that my father's attitude 
had compared unfavourably with that of his three 
associates. I was haunted above all by his last 
look. It was not what it revealed that troubled 
me ; it was what it did not reveal. It was the 
sense of something unspoken, something under- 
ground. I ought to have felt happier to-night 
than I had done for weeks. I was in the imme- 
diate vicinity of the three men who had been 
nearest to him whom I loved. And yet there was 
a fear at my heart which I had never felt before — 
a fear which was not the dread of calamity, but 
the dread of something darker. The shadow of a 
coming grief is hard to bear, but the shadow of 
a threatened dishonour is beyond all bearing. 

I lay down that night in feverish excitement. 
Do what I would, there was one sound in my 
ears, and one image before my eyes ; I heard the 
jingling of the keys, and I saw my father's face. 
For a long time sleep refused to come. When it 
did come, it was of short duration. I awoke in 
the middle of the night. I felt oppressed, uncom- 
fortable, the prey to a new sensation. Hitherto I 
had always an impression that the man of the 
valleys was with me. To-night I felt something 



184 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

impeding his presence. It seemed as if a screen 
were drawn between me and him. I had an un- 
wonted sense of solitude, a feeling that would have 
made me cry out but for the fear of disturbing 
others. It was as if I were passing through an 
impure medium where the air of heaven was 
corrupted and the breath of God was stifled. No 
moment of my physical weakness had to me been 
so prostrating as this. 

Hark ! Was that a step in the passage ? Did 
I know that step ? Undoubtedly ; there was no 
dream this time ; it was the foot of my father. 
He was moving at midnight through his own 
house ; but not as the master moves. His tread 
was stealthy, suppressed, slow. It was not the 
darkness made him timorous ; I heard the rattle 
of a lantern as he passed my bedroom door. The 
uncertainty of his advance must have come from 
within. He moved along the corridor with a foot- 
fall so soft that I believe no other ear than mine 
could have detected it. He made his way toward 
that wing of the building which we called the 
guest-chambers. He paused at the room on the 
east side, and my heart paused with him. I knew 
who slept there ; it was Peter bar-Jona. In the 
intensity of the moment my hearing seemed preter- 
natural. I heard the lantern laid down on the 



MY NEW CORRESPONDENT 185 

outside floor ; I heard the door softly opened ; I 
heard my father go in. Then followed a silence, 
broken only by the beating of my own heart. It 
was but a few minutes ; yet it seemed to me like 
a century. Then the door re-opened, and I heard 
the tread returning. Step by step the journey was 
retraced through the corridor. I heard the feet 
draw nearer, pass my room, and then fade away 
toward my father's room. I drew a long breath, 
but not of relief. Whatever was to happen had 
happened. My fear had ceased to be a thing 
of the future ; it had become a thing of the 
present. One suspense had ended ; another was 
to begin. 

What had happened? As long as it was a 
future possibility I had feared to translate it into 
words. But the prosaic nature of the facts around 
me made me bold. I began to render into 
common speech. What was that hungry look I 
had seen on the face of my father? It was the 
desire to get an entrance into the valleys. What 
was that lurid gleam that had flitted across his 
countenance when he learned that the man beside 
him had a key ? Was it not the lust of possession ? 
Why had he asked Peter bar-Jona to remain all 
night — especially after his deliberate refusal to 
trust him ? Why had he accepted the refusal 



1 86 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

without an argument, without a protest, without 
even a flash of anger ? Why had he been so quick 
to end the interview he was so eager to begin ? 
Why was he treading at midnight and by stealth 
in places not his own? What took him to that 
room, of all rooms ? Was there any escape from 
the pitiless logic of the facts ? If not, what then ? 
Anarchy, bloodshed, death, my house left unto 
me desolate. I looked into the vista, and I 
shuddered. 

The excitement of the brain overpowered my 
yet feeble strength, and I slept again. When I 
awoke it was full daylight, but the impress of the 
night was still upon me. Phoebe entered my room. 
I inquired if the guests were up. To my surprise 
she answered that they were gone, that they had 
left at earliest dawn. A gleam of hope flashed 
into me. Had I not been premature in my sus- 
picions of my father — unfilial, undutiful, uncharit- 
able ? Did not the facts admit of an explanation 
not less natural and far more innocent? How 
knew I that it was midnight when \ first awoke ? 
Might it not equally have been the hour of dawn ? 
Had I measured the precise intensity of the 
shadows ? Was there such a contrast between the 
last moment of night and the first moment of day ? 
What more fitting, what more expedient, what 



MY NEW CORRESPONDENT 187 

more courteous than that my father should go to 
the room of Peter bar-Jona to apprise him of the 
dawning of the day? Was not the old chain of 
circumstances quite as becoming when attached to 
the new theory ? Why should not my father have 
moved with stealth ? Was it not natural he should 
wish to avoid disturbing the household, specially 
natural that he should wish to avoid disturbing 
me ? Surely I had been too fast in my conclusion ; 
I had mistaken the lark for the owl. 

As time passed and brought no sequel, as day 
after day glided on, and still the catastrophe came 
not, events seemed to lend confirmation to the 
brighter view. And yet I was not convinced. 
The greatest part of our evidence rests not on fact 
but impression. Do you know what it is to get 
an explanation of a thing you cannot refute and 
remain unsatisfied still ? That was my position. 
The facts might have lent themselves to either 
side. But what startled me during these days was 
not a positive but a negative element. My father 
made no sign of suspicion ; but as little did he 
make any sign of vindication. Indeed the most 
suspicious thing about him was just his persistent 
reticence. Towards me his manner became peculiar, 
and increasingly so as I grew in strength. He 
met me with evident reluctance. When he spoke 



1 88 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

to me, he was ill at ease, and always in a hurry. 
His words on all subjects were vague and general. 
When I put any question regarding the three 
visitors, he would answer either by a commonplace 
or by an evasion, and then would suddenly re- 
member that he had an engagement elsewhere. 
A girl just returning from the gates of death, and 
with the weakness incidental to such a condition, 
might well have been crushed by the sense of 
unkindness. Will it be believed ? I was crushed 
by the fear that it was not unkindness. Startling 
as you may think it, and unmaidenly as you 
may deem it, it would have been a relief to 
me to know that my father's conduct proceeded 
from the fact of a coldness towards myself. 
That could have been explained consistently with 
honour, for there are states of nervous debility 
which cloud the heart and leave it no power. 
But this fear of mine was for my father himself 
— for his integrity, for his name. Looking back 
upon that dark past, that tragic past, I feel 
bound to endorse this sentiment of my girlhood. 
It is a very ungirlish sentiment ; but I have 
received it from my meeting with a higher life 
than mine. I felt then, and I feel now, that 
the noblest manifestation of love is to desire the 
nobleness of its object. There is a joy in winning 



MY NEW CORRESPONDENT 189 

a heart ; but to make a heart worth winning 
should be a joy deeper still. 

What distressed me most of all at this time was 
the state of my own mind, to which I have already 
alluded. I have said that, for the first time since 
the advent of my new life, I had experienced a 
sense of interruption in my communion with the 
man of the valleys. It was the feeling of one not 
being in the room who used to be there. No 
doubt the contemplation of a moral shadow had 
much to do with it ; the mind, like the body, may 
be disturbed by an atmosphere of whose existence 
it is quite innocent. After a few days the thought 
struck me that I might consult my latest corre- 
spondent. He was evidently a man of large mind 
and larger heart, full of human sympathy, and free 
from local prejudice. I wrote to him ; I poured 
out my soul to him. I told him that, although 
the first outward revelation had come to me in the 
valleys, the spirit of the new age had impressed 
me as it had impressed him. I had felt from the 
very outset that it was not a question for the Lord 
of Palatine, nor for Hellenicus, nor for Moses 
ben-Israel, but for the island as a whole. I told 
him I could stretch a hand to him through the 
distance, by reason of that common love in him 
and me which had annulled the difference between 



i go THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the mountain and the valley. I told him how a 
sense of communion with that love had been to 
me the joy of all joys, the compensation for all 
sorrows. Then I touched on that which disturbed 
me — the interrupted sense of communion. I 
threw myself upon his pity, upon his counsel, 
upon his larger experience ; I asked him to tell 
me how it was that 1 felt the former days to be 
better than these. 

I sent the letter by the hand of Phoebe ; and on 
the second day after I received a reply which on 
all my depressed moments has ever since exercised 
a healing power. It had all the more force because 
it was given in the form of an autobiography. 
Paul unburdened himself. He told me his inner 
history. He described the rapture of his morning. 
It had been to him as if the heavens had opened 
to reveal what mortals cannot see. Then there 
had come a cloud, or, as he called it, a thorn. The 
flower of faith had lost its perfume, he could not 
tell how. He struggled against the change, he 
prayed against it ; but he struggled and prayed 
in vain. It always seemed as if there were inter- 
posed a shut gate between him and the heaven 
of his morning. At last there had come to him 
a strange inner light — a light which had fallen 
upon the barred gate itself and gilded it with its 



MY NEW CORRESPONDENT 191 

glory. There had broken upon him the thought 
that the interrupted communion was itself a part 
of the avenue, that the minor chord was a note 
of the revealing music. He had come to feel 
that this cloud over his morning was a special 
gift of God. He had asked himself if it were 
well for a mortal to live so near the sky when 
his fellow-mortals were so far below. Was he 
not in danger of forgetting what he had most 
need to remember — the weakness of his brother- 
man ? Was he not losing sight of the human 
struggle in the vision of the divine calm ? He 
had come to the conclusion that the thing which 
united men was the thorn, and not the flower. 
Prosperity was often a dividing-line ; but suffering 
brought together. The touch that joined the 
world was the contact of a common pain. The 
flower was the promise of light; but the thorn 
was the talisman to love. 

And then, on the wings of this latest note, the 
letter burst forth into one of the most wonderful 
flights of eloquence I have ever witnessed ; and its 
burden was this, " Love is better than light." I 
could not have believed that this man was capable 
of such passion. You have seen a blaze of sun- 
shine breaking from the bosom of a dusky 
day. Even so flashed out this message from the 



1 92 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

calm soul of Paul. In language which no hymn 
ever rivalled, he implored me to believe that the 
common love which grows out of the common 
thorn is more unfading than the radiance that 
is born of cloudless day. The power of prophecy 
might fail, the memory of language might cease, 
the forms of human knowledge might vanish 
away ; but love was immortal, evergreen, without 
beginning of years or end of days. It was the 
greatest even amongst abiding things. It was 
greater than faith ; it was greater than hope. 
Faith could see through a glass darkly ; love 
beheld face to face. Hope could endure as long 
as the sun ; love could remain after the sun went 
down — could bear all things, believe all things, 
endure all things. It was through the bars of the 
shut gate that man touched the hand of his 
brother ; the crown of love was a crown of thorns. 



CHAPTER XIX 
ALONE IN THE STORM 

I AM now approaching a day of my life which 
will remain in my memory as long as life 
endures, which will remain in the memory of the 
island as one of the great landmarks of history. 
As I look back upon it, and on the days which 
preceded it, I feel now, what I did not know then 
— that the change which it ushered in was not 
sudden. These hours of seeming commonplace- 
ness which I was passing in my own room were 
in reality big with portents both within and 
without. You have seen the flight of birds before 
the storm. The birds were flying now — flying 
round my couch of convalescence, flying through 
the apparently torpid air. Beneath that torpor 
there was movement. Wrapt up in the deceptive 
calm lay the elements of unrest, of revolt, of 
transition. I see it now clearly, unmistakably. 
There were signs of the times in my heart 

193 I 3 



194 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

and in my surroundings. Let me try to read 
them. 

And let me begin with the portent in my own 
heart. Do not think that portent was simply the 
fear of which I have spoken. No ; it was some- 
thing deeper than that. The flight of birds that 
predicted a change of atmosphere was a radical 
change in myself. It was quite true what I had 
said in my letter to Paul — that my sympathy with 
the valleys had never originated in the fact that 
they were adjoining to the house of Israel ; I had 
sympathised with them because I believed them 
to be the depressed parts of the island. None the 
less, my solicitude had been limited to them. It 
had never occurred to me that the valleys were not 
necessarily the most depressed part of the island. 
I had ever commiserated the thorn ; but I had 
always taken it for granted that the thorn belonged 
to the low-lying districts. That it could live in the 
uplands, that it could abound in the region of sun- 
light, that it could be associated, not with cor- 
ruption, but with nobleness, was a thought which 
it had not entered into my heart to conceive. 

But this strange man Paul had struck a new 
chord in me. Here was a man who himself had 
never been a resident in the valleys, who from 
birth upwards had dwelt in the region of the 



ALONE IN THE STORM 195 

higher air ; yet he spoke of his thorn. Nay, there 
was more than that. He claimed his thorn itself 
as a product of the higher air. He wore it as 
men wear a flower ; he appropriated it as a mark 
of his aristocracy in the sight of Heaven. The 
idea was to me unique and overmastering ; it 
filled my heart ; I could not let it go. If suffering 
attached itself not only to the vales but to the 
heights, if sorrow came not only through the sense 
of want but through the sense of repletion, surely 
I and my father's house had gone far astray. I 
had tried to stimulate the sympathy of Hellenicus 
for the valleys ; I had never thought that Hel- 
lenicus himself was a subject for perhaps greater 
sympathy. I had condemned the Lord of Palatine 
for the coldness of his charity to the poor ; it had 
never occurred to me that the poor might be cold 
in their charity to the Lord of Palatine. A new 
light began to dawn, and ere long it was broad 
noonday. I had called my ideal the man of the 
valleys : but why ? What had sent him to the 
valleys rather than to the uplands ? Was it be- 
cause the former were privileged ? No ; it was 
because the sorrows of the valleys are the sorrows 
of man as man. There are sorrows in the uplands 
which may belong to you and not to me ; but the 
pains at the foot of the ladder are the pains of all 



196 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

It broke upon me like a revelation in these hours 
of silence, and the thought made a new world to 
me. I had ceased to be the representative of a class, 
the partisan of a section. I had become a humani- 
tarian, an advocate for man all round — as round 
as the island. It was a change purely within, but 
it transformed my view of the theatre of life ; old 
things had passed away, and all things had become 
new. 

And while this was happening in my heart, what 
was befalling outside ? I know now ; I write from 
the light of memory. There was within my own 
house a movement in the opposite direction, but 
still in the direction of change. If before the eyes 
of the daughter there swam the vision of a common 
love, before the eyes of the father there glittered 
the image of an island dominion. I have shown 
how, since that night of suspicion, there had sprung 
up between me and my father a wall of separation. 
During my severe illness I had of necessity been 
withdrawn from intercourse with him and with 
every one. But the withdrawal had on his part 
now become voluntary. He began, as I have said, 
by avoiding long interviews, and by shunning 
special subjects of conversation ; he ended by 
preventing all interviews, and refusing to converse 
at all. As the days glided on he seemed in- 



ALONE IN THE STORM 197 

creasingly to glide apart from me. His momentary 
presence in my room was replaced by the in- 
quiring message, and ultimately the message itself 
ceased to come. I would hear him pace his own 
apartment for hours together, with that slow and 
measured pace which denotes anxious thought. 
But it was the nights and not the days that mainly 
disturbed me. The most disquieting circumstance 
was not his presence in his own room when he 
ought not to have been there ; it was his absence 
from it when he should have been there. In the 
old days he had retired to rest early ; he now came 
in late. He took his walks in the open air by 
night instead of by day. The guard did not fear 
him ; they thought him the friend of Caiaphas, 
and they knew that Caiaphas was their friend. 
They feared vie, but they deemed me vanquished 
and dying. They had no notion that there was 
any key of the valley outside the possession of 
the Lord of Palatine. 

Had my father such a key? Was he using 
such a key ? Where was he spending these nights 
of absence ? Was it in the valleys ? If so, for 
what and with whom ? Was he seeking to revive 
the patriotism of the clan? Was he fanning the 
flame of discontent against the Lord of Palatine ? 
I asked the questions with a trembling heart, and 



i 9 8 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the trembling of my heart seemed to communicate 
itself to the ground beneath my feet. Everything 
appeared to be shaking, vanishing. I felt as if my 
father's house were on fire, as if I, its last member, 
were being enveloped in destruction. There was 
something awful in the sense of solitude. If there 
had been some one to dispute with, to argue with, 
to strive with, it would have been bearable. But 
to be alone, so far as companionship was concerned, 
in a building which I believed to be condemned ; 
to be the solitary representative of a house which 
I fancied to be even now in flames ; to have no one 
of my own class to speak to, to cry to, to appeal 
to ; above all, to feel that the cause in which I was 
the victim was not the cause of the ideal I loved, — 
it was the most forlorn moment I had known since 
the night of my disappointment in the valleys. 

At last one morning I said to myself, " I shall 
bear it no more." Come what would, I resolved to 
speak out my dissent, to tell my father that the 
kingdom which I sought was not the kingdom 
sought by him. I could not charge him with 
taking the keys ; but I could tell him my view 
of the question. For once I would have welcomed 
the presence of Caiaphas ; for once our paths 
would have coincided. But Caiaphas had not 
returned ; doubtless he felt no desire to be im- 



ALONE IN THE STORM 199 

mured in a guarded house. My only chance was 
to deal with my father himself. Clearly he was 
more to be pitied than blamed. Had he not 
suffered by the want of my influence ? During 
these hours, days, weeks, in which I had been 
withdrawn from his side, there had been nothing 
but his own morbid thoughts to feed on : was it 
strange if his thoughts should have overcome him ? 
Was it not high time that on my part all this 
should end ? Why was I lingering here in idleness 
and uselessness ? Why was I content to be a drag 
upon the wheels of the household ? Had not this 
convalescence of mine been too tardy, too pro- 
tracted, too slow of completion ? I would wait for 
it no more. I would resume my place as mistress 
of the house. I would take up again the reins of 
my domestic duties. I would return to that path 
of guidance and of suasion in which I had always 
found my father willing to be led. I would dispel 
this dreaming of my own and this anarchy of my 
surroundings. I would begin to-day, now, here ; 
this morning would be my second birthday. 

As I made this resolve, I looked out upon the 
morning. I felt a chill on the very threshold. 
There are some days which beckon us on ; there 
are others which dissuade us, or try to do so. 
This was one of the latter. It said to my new 



200 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

enthusiasm, " Don't." It was ominous with clouds ; 
it was restless with winds. There were mutterings 
of a storm in the east ; the birds, not alone figura- 
tively, but literally, were flying ; and I heard the 
concentrated lowing of the cattle as they crowded 
together in the fellowship of the mystery. 

Phoebe entered, and I told her my resolve. 
I bade her say to my father that I would be 
with him at dinner that day. She expostulated 
somewhat. She said I might choose a milder 
day in which to set my house in order ; but I 
was resolute. I rose. I dressed myself in my 
warmest morning garments. I was resolved to 
begin the resuming of my duties by passing 
through each of the rooms and marking traces 
of neglect. Meantime the gloom outside was 
deepening. The air was every instant becoming 
more chill. The breeze was fast freshening into 
a gale. The mutterings from the east were grow- 
ing each moment more pronounced, and the 
storm was beginning to speak audibly. Every 
chink and crevice of the house was becoming 
vocal. Through the doors whistled the wind ; 
up from the front of the building moaned the 
sea ; and at the back, where my room was 
situated, swept the gusts over Palatine Hill. 

Phoebe returned, She was deadly pale ; and 



ALONE IN THE STORM 201 

a chill went through me keener than that of the 
atmosphere. My father, she said, was not in 
his room, not in the house ; he had not slept 
in his bed last night. My first impulse was 
to utter a cry ; but I checked myself. Why 
should the servants be made to feel that there 
was anything wrong? I resolved to make light 
of it I said my father had probably been called 
away on sudden business ; he would write and 
explain. Meantime I told Phoebe to summon 
the servants for the hour of morning prayer. I 
wished to show the household that there was no 
loosening of the old ties. In the absence of 
my father and in the absence of Caiaphas, I 
had taken the resolution of myself conducting 
the service. It was a rare thing in our family 
for a woman to do ; but one or two of my female 
ancestors had done it — notably the distinguished 
Deborah. I was not anxious for a precedent. 
I was quite aware that I was on the borders of 
a new world, and I was not sorry that to my 
own household I should be privileged to be its 
pioneer. I took therefore in the common hall 
the seat which was usually set apart for Caiaphas, 
and which in his absence my father was wont 
to fill. 

Perhaps for the first time since the days of 



202 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

Deborah our household now listened to an ex- 
temporaneous prayer. I did not read my petitions 
from a book ; I poured them forth from my own 
heart. I addressed the God of the heights ; but 
I prayed to the man of the valleys. I spoke to 
him as I had spoken in my wanderings — these 
blessed wanderings. I spoke without literary form, 
without even an attempt to be grammatical. It 
was more a child's cry than a priest's orison. I 
just entreated him not to leave us alone in the 
big storms of this island. I told him our ship 
was rocking in the waves ; I asked him to come 
and take the helm. I implored him to guide 
amid the tempest. I said that the storm with 
him would be better than the calm without him, 
that his presence was itself our haven, that no 
wind could blow too strongly if it drove us into 
his arms. And the servants stared in astonish- 
ment to hear the Object of human worship 
addressed in such terms of endearment. 

After the morning prayers came the morning 
orders. I surveyed the different rooms one by 
one ; I gave instructions for what needed repair. 
When I came into the sitting-room, which fronted 
the sea, the spectacle which met me was sublimely 
awful. The storm had burst its bounds, and was 
sweeping all before it. The waters were a sheet 



ALONE IN THE STORM 203 

of foam, whose whiteness gleamed more apparent 
over against the ever-blackening sky. The waves 
came on like a series of successive ridges, tower- 
ing up, breaking, and levelled on the shore. There 
was a chorus of unsuppressed voices. The wind 
shrieked ; the ocean moaned ; the sea-gulls cried ; 
the billows lashed as they struck the beach. Never 
had this island home looked to me so terrible, 
so desolate, so pent within itself. Never did I 
feel so sympathetic with that ancestor who climbed 
the peak called Nebo on the chance of seeing 
land. 

It is in these moments of vastness that we 
notice trifles. I turned my eyes for an instant 
from the storm — perhaps by an impulse of reaction. 
They rested on a small table. They rested on 
something smaller still lying on the table. It was 
a sealed letter marked " Private," and addressed 
to me. I tore it open. It was written with a 
quivering hand, not always very legible, here 
and there leaving a blot behind, yet full of char- 
acter withal. It was unsigned ; but by me there 
was needed no signature ; it was from my father. 

" Ecclesia," it said, " to-night or never. For 
weal or woe, the prayers of the house of Israel 
are ended. I have never sought a land beyond 
the sea. Whether there be such a land I know 



2c 4 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

not ; it is not the heritage I claim. The heritage 
I claim is the home of my fathers. I have asked 
no immortality but the immortality of my house. 
It has been the one article in my creed, the one 
faith in my God. My Ecclesia, your name has 
been associated with the valleys. It ought not 
so to be. You were born for the mountain 
ranges. The red blood of the morning sun is 
in your veins. You have sprung from a race 
whose birth-hour surveyed from the hilltop the 
promised land. It was no land of shadows, no 
land at the other side of the ocean — if other side 
there be. It was this island home in which 
we dwell — the food of it, the good of it. Why 
pant you for mansions beyond the wave? Your 
mansions are waiting for you here. This island 
shall be yours — the length of it, the breadth of 
it Something tells me you are destined to reign. 
Think you I have been blind to your beauty, 
though I have made no sign? Think you my 
heart has not swelled with unspoken pride as 
I have seen you bloom ? You have been my 
immortality, Ecclesia. I have seen my race re- 
vive in you ; I have seen it climb the heights 
of Palatine ; I have seen it bounded only by 
the sea. You have been to me what the man 
of the valleys has been to you— the star of a 



ALONE IN THE STORM 205 

new empire. I follow the star to-night. This 
night shall tell whether the house of Israel shall 
or shall not be free. This night shall say whether 
your home, the home of your fathers, shall be 
a prison or a palace. I shall enter its gates in 
freedom, or I shall enter them no more. I shal 
return to you victorious, or I shall never return 
to you. You shall be sharer in my crown ; but 
I will not let you share my cross. If I succeed, 
I shall meet you at the gates of my liberated 
dwelling ; if I fail to conquer, and at the same 
time fail to die, I shall not expose my house 
to the track of the pursuer. Ecclesia, fair weather, 
or farewell." 



CHAPTER XX 
THE DAY OF CRISIS 

THE letter dropped from my hand. Do you 
know what it is when a long-expected 
calamity actually happens? Those who do not 
know think it must have come without its sting — 
deadened by the fact of expectation. It is a 
grand mistake. Let those who have watched 
beside an invalid, with the sure knowledge that 
death will be the end, tell you of the pain with 
which they learned that the end had come. The 
previous preparation seemed to go for nothing, and 
the event came like the final shutting of a door. I 
suppose we never really cease to hope until the 
future has become the present. So at least had it 
been with me. Great as had been my fear regard- 
ing my father, I knew now that it had been tinged 
with hope. I learned it from my present despair. 
Before I received that missive my conviction of 

the fact had been almost certain ; but there is a 

206 



THE DAY OF CRISIS 207 

world between the almost and the altogether. 
The message of my father had annihilated that 
world. I had been holding only a thin thread of 
hope ; but that thread had for me bound the stars. 
This last stroke snapped the thread asunder, and 
the stars fell. 

The letter dropped from my hand. It was all 
over now ; doubt was at an end. The transition 
to certainty was a blow, and beneath it I stag- 
gered. Everything else ceased to have any 
existence. I forgot the raging storm ; I forgot the 
swelling sea. I had a sensation somewhat like 
that of the night on which Caiaphas brought the 
tidings of betrayal. I had never exactly recovered 
from that night. My nerves had not regained their 
wonted vigour, and they had been tried on the very 
threshold of the resumed work. I felt a faintness 
coming over me. I grew very tired. I lay down 
on a couch fronting the casement. I fixed my 
eyes mechanically and unconsciously upon the 
cloud over the waters. 

Suddenly I became fascinated by the object 
before me ; the mechanical gaze was transformed 
into a look of interest. Was there not something 
peculiar about this cloud ? It appeared to be 
seeking the island and the window of my room. 
It was certainly coming nearer, nearer. It seemed 



2o8 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

to be gathering its folds from off the face of the 
sea, that it might throw them over my dwelling. I 
trembled at the omen ; a cloud had always been 
in our house the symbol of an averted heaven. 
Closer it drew and closer. And gradually as it 
came there broke upon me a revelation. It was 
not self-moving ; it was only the mantle of some 
one. The real mover was underneath ; this was 
but a garment. Presently it seemed to pass 
through the window. For a moment everything 
in the room was eclipsed, overshadowed. Then, 
all at once, it parted asunder, and from between 
the folds there emerged a figure. I looked and 
uttered a great cry ; it was the man of the 
valleys. 

I sprang forward ; I tried to fall on my knees 
before him ; but he caught me by the hand. At 
the touch of that hand I experienced a thrill of 
wonder. In my night wanderings I had felt 
wounds on that hand. I had not been surprised ; 
he told me he had come from death. But I was 
surprised to feel them now. Could a wound given 
in our island be so indelible that the land beyond 
the sea would not heal it ? Or, could a wound 
given in our island be so valuable that the land 
beyond the sea should wish to preserve it ? Be 
this as it may, I declare that, as my hand rested 



THE DAY OF CRISIS 209 

in his, I felt again the print of the scars which I 
had touched on the night of my wanderings. 

" Ecclesia." My heart vibrated to the one voice 
in all the world ; and timidly, tremblingly, I raised 
my eyes to the wonderful beauty of that counte- 
nance. " Ecclesia, I have come to you in the 
cloud to-day. I want you to feel that the clouds 
are my coming — not the coming of an accident. 
Believe me, I never was nearer to you than now, 
when the storm is raging round your dwelling. 
This night shall men tell how the house of Israel is 
no more. They shall ask where your father dwells. 
They shall seek him in all the island, and in all the 
island they shall find him not. They shall say 
that he is dead. Do not believe it, Ecclesia ; he 
shall be landless, but not dead. He has trusted 
only in the possession of a soil ; his penalty shall 
be to live without a soil. He has had no faith in 
the sea ; the sea shall be his preserver. He has 
reposed his confidence in a kingdom ; he shall be 
a king without a kingdom. Men shall look over 
the waves and say, ' He is drowned.' But your 
eyes shall see him again. In the light of undawned 
days he shall stand upon the dust of this island ; 
and lo, the island's crown shall be upon the head 
of his child. He shall return, and you shall 
nourish his old age and make him young once 

14 



1 



2io THE LADY ECCLESIA 

more. And his own dream shall be realised, for 
the island itself shall be no more an island, and 
there shall be nothing beyond the waves. See ! " 

As he spoke he pointed to the place of the 
waters ; and I looked, and cried out with surprise 
at the sight before me. For I saw what John had 
seen. The waters were not there. They were all 
dried up, and in their room was a great highway 
where crowds passed to and fro ; and on the other 
side were hills basking in sun. All the storm had 
ceased. All the clouds had been withdrawn from 
the horizon to envelop the one form — the man 
of the valleys. It was as if the creation which 
had been groaning and travailing in spirit had 
caught sight of him passing by and lent him 
its burden. Everything had burst into bloom. 
The sky was aflame with glory and the fields with 
gold. But to me it was all passionless by reason of 
a deeper passion. My heart was in the cloud — 
with him. He had let go my hand to point me to 
the splendour ; and without his hand the splendour 
was nothing. I was hungry in the fulness ; I was 
blind amid the glow. I turned back to be with 
him — back into the cloud, back into the shadowy 
room. I put out my hand to clasp his once more. 
It grasped the empty air ; he was gone. I called 
on him ; I cried out ; my eyes swam with tears. 



THE DAY OF CRISIS 211 

Then the cloud within the room began to expand 
again. It passed out of the window. It spread 
over the old place — the place which the light had 
usurped, the place where the sea had been. And 
presently I heard the rush of returning waters ; 
and the sea came back, and I was in an island 
once more. Then came the old sound of the 
storm, sweeping and roaring to the accompaniment 
of waves ; and I became aware that I was not 
alone in the room. I was lying on the couch. 
Some one was bathing my face with w r ater ; it was 
Phoebe. 

" Oh, Lady Ecclesia," she said, " you have been 
ill ! I heard you cry, and I felt something was 
wrong. I knew this exertion would be too much 
for you." 

There is nothing wakes our self-pity like the 
sympathy of another. I indulged in a momentary 
weakness, half the result of nerve tension, and half 
of disappointment at the unreality. And, as at such 
moments revelation to another becomes a necessity, 
I poured out to her the cause of my complaint. 
But this poor girl had something which I had not 
— at least not in full. Remember, she came from 
the house of Hellenicus. She had been trained to 
expect brightness. She caught the silver lining in 
this cloud of mine. She said I must not believe 



212 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

that I had simply come back to the old storm. I 
had come back with a vision in my heart. Was 
not that vision an answer to my own morning 
prayer? Had it not been sent to still me amid 
the tempest, that in my turn I might make others 
still ? Dream or no dream, was it not God's 
message to me? The man of the valleys had 
heard my family service, and had said " Amen.'' 
As she spoke there stole into my heart a great 
calm ; and I could not but think how she and 
I had changed places in the course of the days. 
She, the comforted, had become the comforter ; 
I, the consoler, had stepped down to be consoled. 
I had found again the bread which I had cast 
upon the waters. 

That night came on early ; except in my 
moment's vision, it had never been day. The 
storm raged through the hours unceasingly. At 
nightfall there was great rain. Nature's tears 
seemed to relieve the tempest at her heart. Her 
passion began to subside like that of a child 
exhausted by its own excitement. Then it became 
intermittent, like certain forms of human sorrow — 
an interval of calm succeeded by a burst of feeling. 
At last it sank into a sigh, as if it were trying to 
restrain itself. A smothered, suppressed wail ran 
through air and sea, varied only by the bitter 



THE DAY OF CRISIS 213 

weeping of the rain. I think it would be more 
correct to say that there was less storm expressed 
than that there was more calm. Every one felt 
that the passion and the pathos were there in all 
their strength — simply hiding behind the veil ; and 
I am not sure that the sense of tempest is ever so 
strong as when we are made to feel how much 
more it could say. 

Suddenly there was a new note in the voices. 
What was that noise down by the sea ? Was it 
the roar of the waves ? There was something more 
in it than either wave or weather. Where, when 
did I hear that sound before ? It came to me like 
a refrain of memory : what song of my past did 
it sing ? Ah, I remembered — a very sad song. 
When last I heard it, it was in the life of my 
yesterday. Was not this the very sound that had 
broken my girlhood, that had made a woman of 
me ? Did I not remember the day of that letter 
from Hellenicus, when there swam before me the 
prospect of a physical crown ? Did I not remember 
how, in the very middle of my vain imagining, 
there had come up that cry from the valleys which 
had dispelled it evermore — the cry of the pesti- 
lence, the wail of the weary, the clamour of the 
stricken crowd? Could I mistake that sound? 
Would I not know it among a thousand ? Did I 



2i 4 The Lady ecclesia 

not hear it again to-night ? Yes ; there was more 
than nature in the voices of this night. The soul 
of my brother-man was speaking through the sea, 
through the wind, through the rain. The plaint of 
the valleys was rising once more. Stay, was it 
only the plaint that was rising ? Were not the 
valleys themselves coming up? With all the 
likeness to the old sound, there was a difference. 
That had been a cry of fear ; this was like a voice 
of defiance. That had been tragic with despair ; 
this was tragic with the illusion of coming triumph. 
The wail of despondency had been supplanted by 
a shout of expectation. I heard and shuddered, 
for the shout was more sad than the wail. 

Nearer and nearer came the voices from below. 
Was it that the subsiding of the storm had 
heightened their intensity, as a candle flares 
brighter when the flare of the sun goes down? 
No ; it was more than that. I heard them dis- 
tinctly approaching ; I heard even the direction of 
their approach. In the darkness it seemed to me 
as if there were a panorama addressed to the ear. 
It was a march of voices ; but I could mark their 
track as easily as I could have traced by day 
the footsteps on the sand. On they swept, these 
myriad voices, ever growing in volume, ever moving 
toward one central point. I could not have per- 



THE DAY OF CRISIS 215 

ceived more clearly by the eye where was tending 
that accumulating crowd. It was making for the 
Sympathy Gate — only it was to get out, not to get 
in. The men of the valleys were trying to scale 
the uplands, perhaps the mountains. Their long 
torpor was at last broken — broken by the voice of 
the divine man, though not as he meant it to be. 
They had seen a distorted picture of his will. 
They had caught the rage of dominion, the desire 
of empire. The vision of independence had burst 
upon them ; they were coming to vindicate their 
freedom. Freedom ! Were they fit to be free ? 
Was there a greater proof of their unfitness than 
their very shouts of triumph ? When the thunder 
sends the lightning before it, it bids us prepare for 
the crash. If these men wished to strike fire on 
Palatine Hill, why should they have been so eager 
to warn the foe of their coming ? Were they not 
placarding their own treason in advance, pro- 
claiming to the gaoler that they meant to break 
their bonds ? And my father — the so-called leader 
of the band — what of him ? I saw it all ; he 
was not the leader, but the led. He was holding 
reins which he could not control ; the steed had 
run off with him ; he was at the mercy of the 
crowd which he had gone to command. 

And now I heard them climbing the ascent of 



216 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the valley — the path which I had striven to 
Ascend. They were coming up in the delusion 
that there was no night here, no care here, no 
thorn here, dreaming not that humanity is one. 
As they drew nearer the voices began to be 
articulate. The breeze was blowing in the direction 
of the house, and it carried the sound. " Ben- 
Israel ! ben-Israel ! " " The home of our fathers ! " 
" The island for the people ! " " The promise of 
Moses and Mount Nebo ! " " Palatine Hill for the 
valleys ! " — these were among the cries which came 
floating through the night up the ascent to the 
Sympathy Gate. 

Then came a sound from another quarter. It 
was close at hand — within the walls. From the 
grounds of my father's house there came the blast 
of a horn — loud, long, and penetrating. The guard 
had caught the noise and given the alarm. Then 
the sound was taken up by another horn on a 
more elevated plane. That again was reverberated 
by another on a plane still higher, and so on in 
ascending series, until from the summit of Palatine 
there rose that great blast which I knew so well — 
the blast which had sounded the first alarm over 
my visit to the valleys. 

The house was now in confusion. The servants 
had gathered in the hall, frantic with terror. The 



THE DAY OF CRISIS 217 

signal bore its own message, and it was always 
a message of danger. Phoebe alone remained calm, 
and remained with me. Presently there were 
footsteps in the passage, and the captain of the 
guard entered. " Lady Ecclesia," he said, " you 
can no longer stay here. The men of the valleys 
have risen ; they are even now on the main road. 
I cannot answer for the safety of this house. 
Allow me to conduct you to a place of security." 

" I am not your prisoner, sir," I answered, " that 
you should remove me from my own house." I 
spoke with acrimony, for the blood of my race 
was up. 

"This house is under my charge," said the 
captain ; " I am responsible for it." 

" Guard it then," I said ; " but my person at least 
is free. The charge on which I was imprisoned, 
though morally true, has legally broken down." 

" I have indeed no power to arrest you," he 
answered ; " if I had, I would use it, in your 
interest. But I beseech you to consider your 
position. In half an hour this house may be in 
the possession of an infuriated mob, to whom your 
very rank may be your crime. I strongly advise 
you to seek safety in flight." 

" Sir," I answered, " I do not approve of this 
rising ; none regrets it more bitterly, more poig- 



218 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

nantly than I do. You have heard me express 
my sympathy with the man who in the day of 
pestilence brought succour to the valleys. It is 
because I profess sympathy with him that I have 
none with this cause ; I feel that it is a movement 
contrary to his spirit. None the less, it is a 
movement of my people. Uninfluenced by me 
up to this day, concealed from me, this rising is 
still a rising of those who count themselves my 
clan. The infuriated mob of which you speak has 
in its veins the blood of those who, centuries ago, 
were retainers on this estate. I do not fear them. 
But if I did, what then ? For what should I fear 
danger if not for this house — the home of my 
fathers ? Though it is no longer the old house, 
though we hold as tenants what once we ruled 
as masters, though there is mean furniture where 
there once was gorgeous equipment, yet, poor as it 
is, worn as it is, dilapidated as it is, its very dust 
to me is dear. I shall not abandon it in its 
desolation ; I shall stand amid the ruins of the 
place which to me is holy. Let the servants go ; 
let the retainers go — those who grind at the mill 
and work in the field ; I do not forbid them to 
leave me. Make them the offer you have made 
to me. But as long as I have life and liberty 
I shall abide within these walls." 



THE DAY OF CRISIS 219 

A voice said at my side, " I at least will never 
leave you." It was Phoebe ; and I pressed her 
hand. What course did the others choose? I 
cannot express it better than by saying that one 
was taken and the other left. I never saw such 
an instance of the inherent difference between 
individual souls. Grinding the same corn, toiling 
in the same field, surrounded by the same circum- 
stances, these dependants made an opposite choice ; 
some went out to seek their safety, and some 
refused to quit the tottering building. And I 
learned also in that hour the fallibility of our 
human judgments, for many who went out were 
those whom I counted to stay in, and many who 
stayed in were those whom I expected to go out. 



CHAPTER XXI 
THE TRAGEDY OF THE INNER SHRINE 

THE last of the crowd had now evidently 
emerged from the Sympathy Gate. The 
sound no longer came from below, but from a level. 
It was clear that they were not immediately 
making for the grounds. They were turning 
toward the west. Something must have intervened 
to avert their attention from the possession of the 
prize which was at once the least guarded and the 
nearest. Nor was it hard to detect the cause. 
Counter sounds were audible from the hill ; the 
uplands were coming down to meet the valleys 
It was as if the sea on one side of the island were 
roaring to the sea on the other side. I thought 
of the words of one of our great poets : " Deep 
calleth unto deep." 

As the immediate danger seemed to be post- 
poned, I told the domestics to go and rest awhile, 
for I felt that rest is an essential part of service. 



THE TRAGEDY OF THE INNER SHRINE 221 

I had great difficulty in persuading Phoebe, and 
only succeeded on the plea that I wished to be 
alone. It was, indeed, strictly true. There are 
hours in which solitude is our best companionship. 
This was one of them for me. I felt as if all 
the day I had been defrauded of solitude. The 
elements had roared at me ; the valleys had 
clamoured at me. I longed to have an hour of 
quietness — an hour in which I would be separated 
from all distractions of the ear. The subsiding 
of the storm had already removed one of them ; 
those of human passion still remained. Was there 
any spot where for a brief space I could hide 
from these? 

Yes ; I remembered. There was at the back 
of our house a room called the Oratory. It 
was a place which for years back had been set 
apart for private devotion — where any member 
of the household might retire to pour forth the 
soul in prayer. Within this apartment there was 
a door leading into an inner chamber, which was 
deemed still more sacred, and which for genera- 
tions past had been regarded as under the juris- 
diction of the chaplain alone. In this innermost 
shrine there were two peculiarities ; I mark them 
carefully in the light of what followed. Resting on 
the floor there was a large box, to which Caiaphas 






222 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

kept the key. It was filled with gifts — the 
offerings of those who from time to time had 
come to Caiaphas to make confession of their sin, 
and which were supposed to be the possession of 
the family. Overhanging this box there was 
another peculiar object, which evidently had its 
origin in something symbolic. It was an enormous 
statue, which had been suspended by a cord from 
the outside roof, and let down through an aperture 
into the apartment, so as to overshadow the place 
which held the gifts. I am told it was intended 
to represent the angel of the clan. This inter- 
pretation was borne out by the fact that at the 
end of every year it had been the custom to 
encircle this figure with a chain, by which it was 
designed to indicate that the annual weight of 
the peopled sin had been laid upon the angel. 
In the process of time the chains had accumulated 
enormously, constituting a weight upon the statue 
which I often thought dangerous. Particularly in 
the storm of the past day had the idea occurred 
to me, What if the cord by which the figure was 
suspended should be loosened by the friction of 
the elements ? 

But for this last fancy, I would have selected 
the innermost shrine as the place of my retreat ; 
there was something in its symbolism which at 



THE TRAGEDY OF THE INNER SHRINE 223 

once calmed and fascinated me. But the thought 
of the great figure being unable to support its 
burden was disturbing to me ; I felt it would 
impede my reflection. I resolved, therefore, to 
take the outer room for my night vigil. How 
little do we know what we are doing in the 
most trivial act ! My decision determined the 
destinies of this island. 

I lighted a lamp and passed into the Oratory. 
I carried with me that golden cross which was 
one of the two possessions I had received from 
the man of the valleys, and the only one which 
was left to me. I knelt beside an altar constructed 
for private devotion ; I prayed to him who on this 
day of storm had come to me in a cloud. A great 
calm came over me, and I slept — this time a 
dreamless, visionless sleep. The warm fire, which 
was kept burning even when the room was un- 
occupied, conspired with my natural exhaustion 
to produce a deep repose. My head sank on 
one of the altar steps, and I became oblivious 
of all things. 

Ido not know exactly how long I slept. But 
when I awoke the lamp had gone out ; the fire was 
also out, but its constant use had made the room 
habitually warm. There was already in the sky 
a dim streak of dawn. I had not awakened 



224 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

naturally ; my sleep was broken from without. 
I heard again the sound of shouting ; but it came 
no longer from the valleys, but from the grounds. 
I heard the tread of multitudinous feet sweeping 
through my father's premises. I heard snatches 
of songs expressing the joy of victory, and I knew 
where they came from. These were not the voices 
of the valley ; they were the strains of the men 
of Palatine. It all broke upon me in a moment. 
The battle was over ; the victory was won ; and it 
was won not by my father's house. The men 
of my clan had been crushed — crushed for ever- 
more. I listened to the hoarse voices in the courts 
that were wont to be so silent. I heard the jest, 
the jeer, the sally of wit and repartee, and the 
laughter of response ; and for the first time I felt 
that my home was in the hands of the stranger. 

All at once I became aware of a nearer sound. 
Footsteps were coming through the passage, were 
approaching the door. They were not like those 
in the courtyard — jubilant and bold. They were 
covert, stealthy, slow — those of a man who wished 
to hide himself. I was breathless with fear. I 
have never been greatly afraid of open violence, 
but have always dreaded that which comes on 
tiptoe. I had not long to wait. The door opened, 
and a man entered with a torch in his hand. His 



THE TRAGEDY OF THE INNER SHRINE 225 

face was deadly pale ; but one look at him was 
enough for recognition. I would have cried out 
with surprise, if fear had not paralysed me ; it 
was Caiaphas. 

He did not see me ; he looked at nothing in 
the room. His eyes were strained on the room 
beyond — the inner shrine. There was something 
in that inner shrine which fascinated him, riveted 
him, made him unconscious of all beside. He 
began to think aloud. 

" The time is come for me. Moses ben-Israel 
is no more. Who remains to represent the family? 
Ecclesia ? No ; she has declined to represent it ; 
she has taken up an alien interest. Shall the gifts 
locked up in the sanctuary fall into the hands of 
the Lord of Palatine ? Not if I can prevent it. 
Who is better entitled to these gifts than I? Have 
they not been gifts of the conscience, extorted 
by my own services ? Have they not been wrung 
out from penitent hearts as a tribute to my power ? 
Are they not all the trophies of my ministry to 
this house? Has any one such claim to them 
as I?" 

As he spoke he approached the inner room. He 
entered ; he shut the door. I heard a key applied 
to the lock of the trunk. The vision rose before 
me of his incredible meanness ; it was like one 



226 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

robbing the dead. This man had been following 
the skirts of the men of Palatine to wait the issue 
of events ; and now, when the house he served 
was mutilated, he came to sack it. My heart gave 
a great bound of indignation. I had encountered 
this man before ; I would do it again. I would 
confront him ; I would shame him ; I would teach 
him that mine was no alien interest. I rose from 
the steps of the altar ; in another moment I would 
have met him face to face ; but another was 
quicker than I. 

For suddenly upon the air there came a deafen- 
ing crash and a human shriek. I rushed to the 
aperture. One look was enough. I shall never 
forget the horror of the sight. The overburdened 
statue, weighted with the chains of the people, 
had fallen. The hold of the cord, already greatly 
worn, had been relaxed by the violence of the 
storm, and the moment of its final giving way had 
been precisely that moment when Caiaphas was 
below. There it lay in fragments on the floor; 
and beneath it there was an awful sight — a 
mangled heap that once had been a man. 

I could bear no more. I screamed ; I ran from 
the room to shut out the vision. To get quit of 
the dead foe I fled to the living one. I passed 
through the corridor ; I came into the hall. I 



THE TRAGEDY OF THE INNER SHRINE 227 

met face to face with a detachment of the men 
of Palatine, accompanied by the captain of the 
guard. It was a relief to meet them ; they were 
alive. The captain evidently thought I was flying 
in fear. 

" Lady Ecclesia," he said, " you are my prisoner 
now ; here is my warrant. You and your house 
have been guilty of conspiracy. By the command 
of the Lord of Palatine I arrest you for treason 
against the laws of this island." 

" For God's sake," I cried, " take me away from 
this place ! " 

" I have also," he said, " in the name of the same 
Lord of Palatine, to arrest the servants of this 
house." 

"For the sake of Heaven," I repeated wildly, 
" take us all away ! " 

Was there in his mind the notion that I wished 
to prevent a search of the house with the view of 
concealing some one? I think there was, for he 
presently resumed : " Are there any guests now 
within this dwelling ? If so, I am bound to arrest 
them also." 

" Sir," I answered, " there is within this dwelling 
at this moment a guest you do not dream of — an 
unbidden guest, who comes once to us all. I do 
not think you will be able to capture -kirn" 



228 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

" What ! " he cried, " death here ? I thought I 
had left him where I came from." 

" He has fallen," I said, " upon one of your 
helpers — one who came to spoil the house when he 
knew the master was away. Go, you will find him 
in the inner shrine. You know me too well to 
imagine I shall try to escape." 

He returned quicker than he went. His face 
was ghastly pale — this really brave man, who had 
just come from a scene of blood. " It is a horrible 
sight," he said : " do you believe in retribution ? " 

"To me," I answered, "the horror is not the 
retribution ; it is the fact that I have missed saving 
him. Do you know, it was the casting of a die 
that put him there instead of me. I too was in 
search of treasure to-night ; but it was the un- 
searchable riches. I went to pass an hour of 
devotion ; I decided with difficulty to take the 
outer rather than the inner room. If I had taken 
the inner, my hour would have come to-night, and 
his hour would have been postponed." 

I would have said more, but I was startled by 
the look of his face. If it was ghastly before, there 
was added to the pallor an expression of the most 
acute torture. Then all at once it broke upon me, 
as such things do break. This man, whose associa- 
tions with me had been so adverse — this man, who 



THE TRAGEDY OF THE INNER SHRINE 229 

from the night of the betrayal had stood in the 
place of my gaoler — this man, whom I had re- 
ceived with sarcasm, invective, obloquy — this man, 
whose very name I did not know — loved me. It 
was to me a revelation of surprise. That one so 
effeminate as Hellenicus should have felt for me 
the tender passion was conceivable enough. But 
that the rude soldier of the house of Palatine, the 
man of stern will and strenuous discipline, should 
have shared the same interest with the luxurious 
son of pleasure, this was a strange thing. To me 
there could be but one explanation. The diverse 
power of attraction lay not in me. It lay in my 
contact with that mysterious mind which had not 
only dominated but transfigured my own — a mind 
which seemed to have a hundred doors of egress, 
by any one of which it could come out to capti- 
vate. It was not I who had taken prisoner two 
such opposite types as Thoebe and the captain of 
the guard. It was one who had first imprisoned 
myself, and who, because his own nature was uni- 
versal, had brought me into contact with all things. 

" What of my father ? " I said. 

" Lady Ecclesia," he answered, " your father 
cannot be found. There has been great carnage 
to-night, but he is not among the slain. I know 
he wa3 in the heat of the battle, for I saw him by 



2 3 o THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the light of the torches, and I heard his voice 
shouting the war-cry, * The Lord of Hosts is with 
us ! ' But we have looked in vain for him amid the 
broken ranks of his house. He is not among the 
dead ; he is not among the dying ; he is not 
among the prisoners : he must have escaped. I 
have sent messengers along the main road, down 
the valley, up the hill. They will tell us whether 
they have found any traces or tidings. Meanwhile 
you have rightly felt that this house is no place for 
you. Even were it otherwise, I have no choice in 
this matter. I am commanded to lead you to the 
tribunal of the Lord of Palatine. See, the dawn 
is spreading ; in a few hours we must begin our 
ascent. I withdraw my men to give you time for 
preparation. As a matter of form I was bound 
to take hostile possession of this house ; there my 
hostility ends. Believe me, you have my deepest 
sympathy." 

" And what of the awful guest," I said, " whom 
we shall leave in the inner shrine ? " 

" That shall be my care," he answered ; " dismiss 
all trouble from your mind on this account. I 
shall leave a party here to superintend the burial 
of the priest. I do not know that I shall ask them 
to bury all his memories. I think I shall get an 
architect to take a plan of your inner and outer 



THE TRAGEDY OF THE INNER SHRINE 231 

sanctuary for the inspection of the Lord of Palatine. 
I have a presentiment that some day you will find 
your own symbols on the top of Palatine Hill." 

"You have already one in your possession," I 
said. "What has become of the little vial which 
passed into your hands on the night of the 
betrayal ? " 

" I have sent it," he replied, "to the Lord of 
Palatine ; this too may yet be heard of again." 



CHAPTER XXII 
BEFORE THE DEPARTURE 

THERE is no feeling more sad than the break- 
ing up of home. I do not think it is felt by 
all families in an equal degree. There are some 
who make new friends more easily than others. 
Our family had always been distinguished for its 
slowness in making friends. We were said by our 
neighbours to keep within the house. We were 
called stiff, unsocial, even unfriendly. The Lord 
of Palatine and his brother Hellenicus mixed 
freely with their inferiors ; the house of Israel had 
a tendency to stand aloof. All the more on this 
account was there precious to us the idea of home. 
More than once through the stress of fortune had 
we been called to break up the old mansion ; and 
it had always been a moment of unspeakable pain. 
Such a moment had now come to my own life. I 
had received the command to quit the house of my 

fathers. I was about to leave the walls that had 

232 



BEFORE THE DEPARTURE 233 

sheltered me from infancy. I was to see them 
dismantled of those retainers that still remained, 
and to be led forth as a captive on a charge 
involving life or death. 

I knew by presentiment that I would never see 
these walls again. The few hours left to me of 
possession were like the hours left to us with our 
dead before burial — when, unlike Caiaphas, they 
are our beloved dead. They were a last look, and 
they had all the bitterness of such. With a burst- 
ing heart I w r ent through the old rooms to say 
farewell. There was not a nook or cranny, there 
was not a chink or crevice, outside the scene of 
tragedy, which I did not visit like a shrine. There 
was not a piece of furniture which I did not water 
with my tears. A curious temptation came over 
me to put a mark upon certain articles, that, if 
I ever met them again, I might recognise them. 
But then the thought occurred to me that God 
might have fields for my service in which it was 
desirable to forget the things which are behind. 
I said, " Let God be the custodier of our immor- 
talities ; it is not for me to determine what shall 
be saved from the wreck of time." 

There is one thing which to the future reader 
of these pages may seem strange. He may wonder 
why, with such a desire to keep memorials of the 



234 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

past, I had never during all the days of my con- 
valescence made a single inquiry regarding the 
burial-place of him who had extinguished for me 
all other loves. He may ask why it was that even 
at this moment I did not try to procure from the 
captain of the guard a relic of the spot, were it 
only a twig or a stone. Did I forget? No. 
Startling as it may sound, it was not want of 
memory, but want of interest. Remember my 
peculiar experience. It was not merely that the 
man of the valleys to me was not dead : that was 
the view held by all his followers. But it was that 
to me there never had been a time in which I had 
said to myself, " The man of the valleys is dead." 
His death had been revealed to me as a past fact, 
not a present one. I had to go and pick it up 
from the road I had left behind. When I did pick 
it up, it had already been more than half swallowed 
up in victory. To me the true relic of that grave 
was the risen man ; I had no wish to have any 
other memorial of it. I can understand how others 
might think differently. To Peter, James, and John 
there had been a moment of actual bereavement — 
a moment in which they had exclaimed, " The man 
of the valleys is dead." But mine had been more 
like the experience of my correspondent Paul : the 
news of life revived had anticipated the tidings of 



BEFORE THE DEPARTURE 235 

the grave. To me, as to Paul, the thorn had been 
covered by the flower. 

Let me resume my narrative. I conducted the 
family service again as I had done on the previous 
morning. I told the domestics everything except 
the death-tragedy within the house. My reason 
for keeping that back was not the horror of it. 
The chaplain Caiaphas stood to our house in the 
position of a faith. The domestics had always 
associated every religious act with him ; the first 
exception had been my own service of yesterday, 
and I doubt if it had full effect. Whatever they 
felt of Caiaphas personally — and they feared rather 
than loved him — he was still to them the embodi- 
ment of the idea of worship. I felt that to tell 
them their prop had been removed, before any 
other foundation had been suggested, would be a 
cruel thing. To me the death of Caiaphas was no 
blank in the religious life ; I had already caught 
light from another altar-fire. But to them this was 
the only fire ; to put it out was to leave nothing 
but cold and darkness. I would not put it out 
until I had kindled something new. Let them 
expect the priest's return till another comforter 
should come. It would be time enough to tell them 
that the old candlestick had been broken when their 
eyes had caught one streak of the new and rosy 



236 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

morn. And so I kept the big tragedy In my heart 
that was lying in the silent room. Ye who carry in 
your breast a pain you can tell to no one, pity me. 

After the morning service I did a new thing — a 
thing newer than the service : I asked the domestics 
to sit down with me at a common meal. I put it 
on the ground that the time at our disposal was 
short ; but on any ground it was significant. Our 
house had always been kind to its dependants, had 
always claimed the valleys as within its original 
boundaries. But it had never for a moment 
forgotten the principle of subordination. I had 
been trained in a school supremely conservative. I 
had been taught to look upon family descent as 
the great ground of privilege. I had always a 
tendency to remind myself that I was the Lady 
Ecclesia. I think it was the last part of my old 
nature to be conquered. That night in the valleys 
I had seen the vast multitude partake together ; 
but I was not one of them, and they were all of 
a class. I think my relations with Phoebe were 
the first influences that softened me. My days of 
protracted weakness made me dependent on the 
ministrations of another, and that other one whom 
1 was wont to rule. Be it as it may, this morning 
the Lady Ecclesia was dead and the woman 
Ecclesia was alive. We were sharing one common 



BEFORE THE DEPARTURE 237 

peril — my servants and I. Those who shared it 
with me had elected to do so. Some had turned 
aside yesternight ; perhaps if in the days of the 
past there had been less of the Lady and more of 
the woman in me, they would have loved me more. 
At all events my heart went out to those who 
remained. They had refused to separate their lot 
from mine : would I at this moment divide my lot 
from theirs ? The relation of mistress and servant 
had been shattered by a common blow. We were 
fellow-creatures, fellow-prisoners, fellow-sufferers : 
we would partake this meal together. 

And before it was over there came to me 
another strange experience — a deeper stretch of 
charity still. The captain of the guard returned. 
He stood in the hall and sent a message that he 
desired to speak with me. Quick as lightning the 
thought came to me, Should not this man be asked 
to partake the repast with his prisoners ? Had he 
not last night been far travelled ? Was he not to-day 
the most burdened man in the service ? Would it 
not be only courteous if I invited him to sit down ? 
Then rose up pride and said within me : " Lady 
Ecclesia, you forget yourself. Are you not the 
daughter of Moses ben-Israel? Is not this man 
the enemy of your father — a fighting retainer of 
the Lord of Palatine? Is it not to him we are 



238 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

indebted for all this present misery? Is it not to 
him and to his master we owe the fact that the 
ordained of Heaven are not the possessors of this 
island ? " Then I seemed to hear another voice — 
the refrain of words that I had read and which I 
now remembered. It was that strange message of 
my strange correspondent, Paul. What if the Lord 
of Palatine himself was meantime the ordained of 
heaven ? What if he possessed the island because 
at this hour he was the only man fit to possess it ? 
What if God had consecrated him to the regency 
until the heir was ripe for his inheritance ? In that 
case, was he not the injured rather than the injur- 
ing party? Were not we the disturbers of his 
peace, of God's peace ? Were not his fighting men 
the unconscious servants of a Providence that loved 
order rather than anarchy ? Might not my house 
be the real aggressor? 

Then the last voice prevailed. I went out and 
met the captain in the hall. "Sir," I said, "the 
time is so short at our command that I have asked 
the servants to sit down with me before starting 
and partake of a common meal. If you deem it 
not degrading to be at the same table with your 
prisoners, I shall be glad that you join us." 

" Where the Lady Ecclesia is concerned," he 
answered, " / am the captive ; the condescension 



BEFORE THE DEPARTURE 239 

is all hers ; the honour all mine. I gratefully 
accept your offer. But first of all let me give 
my message. Those whom I sent to seek tidings 
of your father have returned. He is neither in 
the valley, nor on the plain, nor among the hills ; 
he has put out to sea." 

" Put out to sea ! " I cried : " how can you 
tell that? The space gone over in so short a 
time must have been very small. Have your 
messengers tracked the tenth part of the valley 
or the plain, or the twentieth part of the re- 
cesses in the hills ? " 

" No, Lady Ecclesia, you speak truly. It is 
not on the ground of a complete search that we 
know your father to have put to sea ; it is on 
positive grounds. Last night there was a sailing 
vessel on the beach ; this morning It is gone. 
A band of fishermen, known by sight and name 
to the men of the valleys, were observed during 
the week to be busily engaged in stocking it with 
provisions, and these have also disappeared ; they 
have evidently volunteered to become the crew. 
Your father, Lady Ecclesia, has made a wild 
escapade. Does he imagine he can live outside 
of land ? What will he do when the stores have 
been exhausted ? " 

Then a great thought flashed over me. I 



2 4 o THE LADY ECCLESIA 

remembered the vision of yesterday. Had not the 
man of the valleys told me that my father would 
live without land ? Did not that prove that he 
was under the protection of the man of the valleys ? 
Was he indeed beyond the sight of land ? No ; 
only beyond the sight of our island. Was there 
not land on the other side of the sea? Had 
not its existence been guaranteed to me by evi- 
dence stronger than sight ? Had I not the testi- 
mony written in my heart that from the farther 
shore love's eyes were watching ? Were they 
not watching now that lonely vessel on the 
great deep ? Would they not keep that vessel 
in its desolate wanderings ? Why should men 
say, when the ship was cut off from the island, 
that it was cut off from supply ? Were there 
no supplies from the other shore ? Were there 
not, far out from our island home, meetings of 
ships upon the sea — meetings in which the 
transport vessels from the invisible land brought 
sustenance to the mariner whose island stores 
were exhausted ? So would it be with my father. 
He would not die upon the wave ; I felt it, I 
knew it. Pie would be nourished from another 
soil till the times of enmity had passed from this. 
Homeless, landless, companionless, he would not 
die. Without a place left for him on the map 



BEFORE THE DEPARTURE 241 

of the traveller, he would still be the leader of 
a race. With his house in the hands of a stranger, 
he would keep his family name. He might be 
despaired of in the island ; he might be forgotten ; 
he might be deemed dead ; but the salt sea would 
preserve him alive, and in my heart the words 
of the night vision would be ever sounding, " He 
shall return, and you shall nourish his old age, 
and make him young once more." 

" I am grateful to you," I said, " for this in- 
formation ; it gives me a strange comfort. I 
am glad my father is hiding on the sea and 
not on the land. I think we are more in God's 
hands on the sea ; less in man's. There are always 
two currents on the land — the human and the 
divine ; but the current on the sea is all God's. 
Come, let us join my fellow-prisoners at the 
morning meal." 

And that morning there was exhibited a won- 
drous spectacle. The day on which our house 
reached its lowest fortunes was the day in which 
it attained its widest charity. Whenever I think 
of that morning, there rises before me the figure 
of a triangle — narrow at the top and broad at 
the base. The progress of our house had been 
a steady progress downwards ; it had begun at 
the zenith of hope and ended in the present 

16 



242 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

despair. And yet the present despair had pro- 
duced what all the years of hope had failed to 
win. For the first time in the history of my 
home there was displayed within its walls an 
act of free hospitality. There, in the last hour 
of its possession, the representatives of our diverse 
island life sat side by side in social unity. The 
servant was at one table with the mistress, the 
clansman with the alien, the friend with the foe. 
Branches that had never met unitedly on a single 
tree were joined this morning. There was the 
house of Israel, represented by myself — the proud 
Ecclesia. There was the household of Hellenicus, 
embodied in the presence of the gentle Phoebe. 
There were the retainers of the Lord of Palatine, 
prefigured in the person of the man who had just 
struck a blow in defence of his master's claim. It 
was a strange, a heterogeneous, some may say an 
unnatural group ; yet I do not think I was ever 
more loyal to the honour of my family than when I 
made the season of its depression the hour of its 
enlargement. There are days which only get 
bright as they near the setting sun. Looking back 
to that last moment in the house of my father, it 
almost seems to me as if amid its storm and stress 
the words of one of our poets found their fulfil- 
ment : " At evening time there shall be light" 



CHAPTER XXIII 
0U1SIDE THE GATES 

THE morning sun had already climbed far 
into the heavens as we emerged from the 
precincts of the old home. By the precincts of 
the old home I do not mean merely my father's 
grounds. There was a whole village adjoining 
these grounds, whose dwellers had always looked 
on my father as their feudal master. They lined 
the road as we passed by. They made no conceal- 
ment of their sorrow : rustic nature rarely does. 
They wept ; they sobbed ; they wrung their hands ; 
they uttered exclamations of despair : and if the 
women were more vociferous, the men were not 
silent. It was not merely that the old tenant was 
going ; in the afternoon a new tenant would be 
there, commissioned to hold the house by the 
Lord of Palatine. I think, when a loved family 
has departed from a dwelling, there is something 
sadder than the sight of the house empty ; it is 

243 



244 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the sight of the house in other hands. The first is 
only a blank ; the second is a revulsion. I do not 
wonder that they wept. 

We left the village behind. We came upon 
a path which, when last I saw it, was the open 
country. But now to my startled eye it was a 
military city. Since the day of my illness I had 
never been on this road. I had left it a solitary 
common ; I found it a hive of life. It was covered 
with soldiers' tents ; it was guarded at every post. 
But that was the smallest part of the change. It 
was not the military parade that shocked me ; it 
was the survivals of a scene of carnage. There 
were no dead bodies, but there were many dilapi- 
dated living ones. In addition to the tents of the 
soldiers there was a very large tabernacle, which 
had evidently been improvised for an emergency. 
In front of the door lay a multitude of wounded 
men, with eyes eagerly strained upon the edifice. 
They were clearly under medical inspection. To 
and fro moved a company of men whom I took to 
be physicians. They examined the sufferers one 
by one. At the end of each examination they 
made a sign, and according to its nature there 
was a different result. In one case the sufferer 
was carried into the pavilion ; in the other he was 
left at the door. 



OUTSIDE THE GATES 245 

" What is that tenement ? " I said, addressing 
the captain of the guard. 

" That," he answered, " is a military hospital." 

" But," I said, " large as it is, it seems quite 
inadequate to this morning's demand." 

" As it is merely a stretch of canvas," he replied, 
"it might be extended indefinitely. But you do 
not suppose a hospital is meant to meet all the 
demands for it?" 

" Why not ? " I cried in extreme wonder. 

" You would not," he said, " have those admitted 
who are not qualified ? " 

" But what is the qualification ? " I exclaimed. 
" Is not a man qualified in proportion as the 
amount of his hurt is great?" 

" Exactly the reverse," he returned. " The more 
deadly the wound, the less right has the man to 
expect care. Look now." (He pointed across the 
field.) "Do you see those two men whom the 
doctors are examining? They are hurt in very 
different degrees. One of them is lying prostrate ; 
the other has broken an arm. Yet, I tell you, 
that the man with the broken arm will get in, and 
the man with the broken life will be kept out. 
There ! did I not say it would be so ? " 

And truly he was right. He who w T as able to 
walk was presently conducted into the pavilion, 



246 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

and he who was prostrated was passed by. " Why 
is this ? " I cried in strong indignation. " Are the 
medical men in the service of your house intended 
only to cure those who look curable beforehand ? " 

" Exactly, Lady Ecclesia ; you could not have 
expressed it better if you had studied the subject 
for years. It is not even a question of curable 
or incurable. The entire consideration is whether 
the disease or injury can be removed to such an 
extent as to render the patient fit for active 
service. If the doctors think not, they refuse to 
take care of him. No man among the retainers of 
our house has his life valued for its own sake." 

Where had I heard these sentiments before? 
Oh yes, I remembered ; it was in that last inter- 
view with Hellenicus, in which I defended the 
claims of the valleys. I had shuddered at the 
theory ; but I think there must have been in my 
mind a faint hope that Hellenicus was somewhat 
romancing. It is the only way in which I can 
account for the actual horror with which I saw 
it in practice. I felt as if some one had struck 
me. Never since the night in which the woman 
was stoned in the valley had I experienced such 
an emotion. " It is shameful," I cried ; " it is 
brutal ; it is abominable ! If things are bad within 
my gates, they are worse within yours." 



OUTSIDE THE GATES 247 

The captain laid his hand on my arm, but gently. 
" I implore you, Lady Ecclesia," he said, " do not 
say anything that may prejudice your position 
with the Lord of Palatine. He is already suffi- 
ciently incensed. You can no longer even in name 
speak of your gates and his gates. He has 
threatened to demolish the walls of your old 
dwelling, and transform it into a military 
station." 

" My house," I answered proudly, " is indepen- 
dent of my dwelling ; it is where my father is, and 
will return with him when he comes back. Mean- 
time I want to prevent the Lord of Palatine from 
demolishing his own house. Will you grant me 
one favour ? Will you allow me to speak a word 
of kindness to the disappointed man in the scene 
to which you directed me ? " 

"Why to him more than to others? Is he not 
only one of a disappointed multitude ? " 

"Yes," I replied, "but I think we sympathise 
with units more than masses. Won't you let me 
go ? You don't fear I shall try to break my bonds 
— to run away, or to sail away like my father ? " 

" Go by all means," he said ; " I trust you 
implicitly." 

I hurried over the field to the point where 
my eye and my heart had been last centred. 



248 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

I found the object of my solicitude not only 
prostrate in body, but completely prostrate in 
mind. There is a boundary line of physical weak- 
ness which tends to obliterate the distinction be- 
tween the coward and the brave. I have always 
been told that the retainers of the house of 
Palatine were conspicuous for courage. That 
has not been my experience. The opinion is 
based upon the fact that, when things have come 
to an extremity, the retainers of this house have 
preferred to avoid the extremity by meeting death 
with their own hand. To my humble judgment 
the fact would seem to point to the opposite con- 
clusion. It appears to me to indicate that the 
hour of extremity is to these men insupportable, 
and that they shun the foe which they have not 
courage to meet. 

Be this as it may, the man before me was 
in mental prostration. I have no doubt he was 
among the bravest in last night's battle ; but that 
is not the ultimate test of bravery. It is something 
to stand fast in the evil day ; but to stand when 
the night is come — thl p is divine. He was utterly 
unmanned by the denial of human sympathy. He 
had been so accustomed to move in companies 
that the solitude appalled him. He had not either 
the material or the strength for taking away his 



OUTSIDE THE GATES 249 

life ; if he had, I have no doubt he would have 
done it. As it was, he cried like a girl. 

I took his hand in mine ; the new life within me 
had taken away much of my reserve, had made 
things honourable to me which I once would have 
deemed improper. " Don't think," I said, " that 
all the island has deserted you. I am the Lady 
Ecclesia, daughter of Moses ben-Israel ; and I 
have come to comfort you." For once it was not 
pride made me use my designation ; it was the 
wish to let him feel that he was not neglected. 

He looked up quite startled at the sympathy. I 
greatly missed my little vial at that moment, for 
I remembered the case of Phoebe. Suddenly it 
occurred to me that I had still a relic of the night 
of vision — the little cross of gold which the man of 
the valleys had given me. I took it from my inner 
garment and pressed it on the palm of his hand. 
" Clasp that for a moment," I said ; "lam told it 
has great power of healing." The effect surprised 
even myself. In an instant his pale cheek was lit 
up with a flush not unlike the rose of health ; his 
languor seemed to vanish, and the light of interest 
flashed from his eye. " I have the oddest sensa- 
tion," he said. " I feel as if all the weakness and 
pain had left my body and passed into the body 
of that other wounded man opposite. I still have 



250 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

a sense of them ; but I feel as if they were his, 
not mine. I wonder if you could do anything to 
relieve him ; I am not speaking quite unselfishly ; 
for I have a sensation as if he were a bit of 
myself." 

The doctor passed, and I accosted him. " Would 
you examine this man again," I said ; " it seems 
to me he shows symptoms of amendment." He 
answered gruffly that he was not in the habit 
of reversing his decisions ; none the less he 
proceeded to re-examine. The patient himself 
protested. He said he had been already pro- 
nounced too ill to be succoured. He urged the 
doctor to go in quest of more hopeful cases and 
not waste time on him ; he could meet his fate 
without a shadow of fear. 

In a few minutes the doctor looked up from his 
work. " What is the meaning of this," he said. 
" This man is certainly fit for the hospital. What 
has effected the change ? " 

" Doctor," said the patient, " this lady has a 
skill beyond you ; she has applied an instru- 
ment which has probed deeper, and cured in the 
probing." 

" Let me see it," said the doctor. He took the 
cross and examined it. He asked me how I had 
applied it, and he received the information with a 



Outside the gates 251 

cynical smile. "Take your cross/' he said, "and 
try it on that man opposite ; he has also been 
rejected, and is also in despair. I shall wait here 
till you come back. Let me know the result. A 
single swallow does not make a summer." 

I gladly availed myself of the offer. I crossed 
the field to the spot indicated — the same where the 
former patient had felt his pain to be transferred. 
The doctor followed me with his eye, closely, 
critically, as if to make sure that the cross and 
the cross alone were the applied instrument. I 
did not keep him waiting above five minutes. 
"Well," he said, with a strongly sceptical air, 
" what success have you had ? " I answered, 
" Come and see." He accompanied me across the 
field. We found the man in a high state of 
mental energy. It took the form of an intense 
sympathy for those around him. He seemed to 
have forgotten that he was anything more than a 
spectator. He had ceased to realise that he was 
himself one of the company whose case he com- 
miserated. He directed the doctor's attention to 
cases in the field which seemed to promise recovery. 
" It is a pity," he said, " that these fine fellows 
should be lost to the service of the island." He 
was oblivious of the fact that no one gave greater 
promise of recovery than himself. At the end 



252 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

of a brief but searching examination the doctor 
exclaimed with surprise, " This man is also fit for 
the hospital." 

The doctor was now in a strait betwixt two. 
On the one hand professional pride prompted him 
to get rid of me as soon as possible. But on the 
other hand was a more potent agent than pride — 
self-interest. He knew that every man saved to 
the Lord of Palatine was a step in his own 
promotion. The recovery of every patient was a 
personal gain to him ; it was property saved from 
the wreck. I possessed an influence he did not 
understand. But, however unintelligible to him, he 
felt he could utilise it for his own interest. Pride 
died hard. He asked me again to let him examine 
the cross. This time he made an effort at personal 
experiment. He tried the effect of the instrument 
on some of the patients with his own hand. He 
returned crestfallen. " I can make nothing of it," 
he said. 

This was a revelation even to myself. Up to 
this time I believe I had the notion that the little 
cross had an efficacy of its own apart from the 
hand which held it. To me its value was increased 
rather than diminished by the discovery that it 
required to be united with a phase of the human 
spirit. " Doctor," I said, " are there no cases in your 



OUTSIDE THE GATES 253 

profession in which the hand that administers is as 
important as the thing administered ? " Then the 
pride died altogether. " You are right," he said ; 
" take the cross in your own hand and do what you 
can with it. So far as I am concerned, you have 
the liberty of the field." 

I was not slow to take his permission ; and the 
result amply justified and rewarded him. I do not 
think the military hospital had ever been so filled 
as it was that day. I do not think the Lord 
of Palatine ever received so many restitutions of 
seemingly lost property as he did on the morning 
when I made my inspection of the wounded. The 
greatest gain of his life came from that very man 
of the valleys whose interest he deemed at variance 
with his own. To me the main satisfaction was 
the opportunity I had of connecting the cross with 
the name of him who had given it. I did not wish 
any one to think that the source of the power lay 
in me. And yet I am bound to confess that I did 
not wholly succeed in my efforts at self-burial. As 
I traversed the field, as I was seen ministering in 
turn to the need of each sufferer, as one by one the 
cases accumulated in which recovery had come 
after hope's abandonment, the excitement of the 
victims hitherto unreached became intense. The 
vision of a beam of light passing over their com- 



254 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

rades, and the frantic fear that the beam might set 
ere it reached themselves, was almost too much for 
them. My name had been passed from lip to lip 
through the sorrowful band. Presently it became 
came a united watch-cry, or rather a prayer-cry. 
" Ecclesia ! Ecclesia ! " rang through the field, in 
accents half supplicating, half admiring. It was 
charmingly irreverent. My title was left out ; 
my designation was suppressed. There are pauses 
in music which are more eloquent than a note 
would be. So to me at that moment was the 
leaving out of the word " Lady." I think I never 
heard so musical a silence. 

At last the captain recalled me. "Lady 
Ecclesia," he said, " my sympathies are with you, 
and, if it depended on myself, there would be no 
obstruction to your benevolence. But I fear the 
interpretation which may be put upon the act 
by the Lord of Palatine ; I dread it for myself, 
and I dread it for you. Remember you are 
ascending to his judgment-seat. You and your 
house are under his ban. What if it should be 
said that you have attempted to prejudge his 
sentence by winning the popular ear? In your 
interest and in my own interest I must ask you 
to desist. Meantime during this march I have 
placed my pavilion at your disposal for rest and 



OUTSIDE THE GATES 255 

for refreshment. Retire there for an hour and 
recruit yourself; I shall allow your own servants 
to minister to you. We shall resume our journey 
by-and-by." 

I did not refuse his kindness, for I was still 
easily exhausted. But regarding the danger he 
apprehended I had no fear. I thought then, and I 
think still more now, that to one standing before 
the judgment-seat of the Lord of Palatine, there 
could be no stronger ground of defence than just 
the fact that I had caught the ear of his own most 
faithful retainers, and had been able to minister to 
the needs of that military force by which he himself 
had supported his claim to island dominion. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
THE FIRST WORLDLY TEMPTATION 

FROM the moment we left my father's grounds 
our path had been an upward one, but its 
rise was at first so gentle that it was practically a 
plain. After resuming our journey it showed more 
symptoms of climbing. It was designed on my 
account that the progress should be effected by 
slow and intermittent stages. About an hour after 
noon we reached what might be called a temporary 
landing in the stair. The estate named Palatine 
Hill stood on the top of an eminence. There were 
roads leading up to it from every part of the island, 
as if it had been designed to be the centre of all 
things. Nevertheless the communication was by 
no means easy. The approaches, though many, 
were long and winding. Palatine Hill, like the 
summit of every hill, looked nearer than it really 
was ; it tempted by a seeming facility of access 

which was not there in fact. In none of the roads 

«56 



THE FIRST WORLDLY TEMPTATION 257 

was the ascent maintained continuously. There 
were intervals of flat surfaces interposed between 
the climbings — periods in which the upw r ard pro- 
gress was suspended and the expectation baffled 
which predicted an early goal. It was to one of 
these flats that we attained after the meridian sun ; 
and instinctively I paused to survey the prospect. 

For the first time since we began our journey 
the form of Palatine Hill burst clearly on our view. 
On the lower ground it had been comparatively 
hid, but the superior elevation brought it into 
prominence. In the rays of the midday sun it 
looked positively gorgeous. I could not help 
expressing my admiration to the captain. " Yes," 
he said, " it is very fine, but I think it has passed 
its full glory. If you were near, you would see 
signs of decay in the building ; it wants repair. I 
have seen the House of Palatine exhibit a splendour 
to which this is as twilight to the day. Besides, it 
has suffered much of late." 

" How so ? " 

"Did you not hear of the great fire some time 
ago, when the house was almost burnt to the 
ground ? " 

" No ; it must have been during the days when 
I was imprisoned in my room and heard nothing. 
Was it an accident ? " 

*7 



258 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

" That is just what nobody knows. The Lord of 
Palatine himself did not scruple to express sus- 
picion of some of your retainers. I do not think 
he has been the same man since. I remember 
the time when his solicitude was for the island ; 
I think it has become personal. It is on that 
ground I am anxious about his meeting with 
you." 

I was eager to change the current of the conver- 
sation. Affection was having its influence on this 
man's mind; and I could not bear that even 
indirectly I should be the means of shaking the 
loyalty of a subject of the Lord of Palatine. I 
therefore asked irrelevantly, " At what time do 
you expect we shall arrive ? " 

" I think," he said, " the setting sun will be 
there before us. I do not imagine you will be in 
time to see it by daylight. Meanwhile I have 
made every arrangement for your comfort and 
convenience. I have directed that your tent shall 
follow as long as the march continues ; but I have 
arranged that the last part of your journey, which 
is the steepest, shall not be on foot. At the next 
landing in the ascent we shall dine, after which 
you and I shall mount horse and ride forward in 
advance ; the others will follow." 

I was about to thank him for his kind considera- 



THE FIRST WORLDLY TEMPTATION 259 

tion, when an event occurred which introduced one 
of the most striking episodes of my life — an 
episode which had an effect on my mind quite 
disproportionate to its actual magnitude. A soldier 
came up from the rear, and, addressing the captain, 
said, " A singular-looking man has just arrived in 
the camp who urgently desires to speak to the 
Lady Ecclesia ; he says he has a message for her 
of great importance." 

" Where is he ? " 

" We have left him in the tent set apart for the 
use of her ladyship." 

" Why have not you brought him here ? " 

" He says his communication is strictly secret, 
and must be made to the Lady Ecclesia alone." 

" Will you not trust me to go ? " I said, inter- 
posing in the dialogue. 

" I will trust you" he answered, " but not him.'' 
Turning to the soldier he said, " Take a company 
and escort the Lady Ecclesia to the tent ; you can 
stand outside till the interview is over." 

As I crossed the plateau my mind was a prey 
to fancies. But in all the fancies that floated 
through my brain I did not hit upon the real one. 
I conjured up many possibilities. The thought 
even occurred that perhaps after all my father 
might have been found on the land. But the 



2 6o THE LADY ECCLESIA 

thing which really happened was the one thing 
which I never expected. 

I entered the tent with a palpitating heart, and 
the sight which met my eye at once transfixed 
me. There stood before me a gigantic figure with 
breadth to match, colossal in hand and foot, and 
coarse in feature. His countenance betokened 
above all other things unrest, and it was centred 
in his eyes, which flashed wildly, incessantly. He 
came forward and at once addressed me. 

" Lady Ecclesia, daughter of Moses ben-Israel, 
latest scion of the most royal house in this island, 
I have come again to visit you. Do you not 
remember me ? " 

" No," I cried, " I never saw r you before." 

He smiled with great condescension. " I do not 
wonder," he said, " that you have failed to recognise 
me, for I have put off all the trappings of weakness 
and taken a new form. I used to be known as 
the man of the valleys." (I shuddered.) "Ah! no 
wonder you shrink with disgust. That was in the 
days of my flesh. I have put away childish things. 
I have come back from heaven with a new body 
and a new name. I am called no longer the man 
of the valleys, but 'the son of the star' — the 
conquering star foretold in one of your poems, 
The Song of Balaam.* And I am come specially 



THE FIRST WORLDLY TEMPTATION 261 

to you. I am come to raise the fallen fortunes of 
your house, to make it not only free but master. 
I see you a prisoner in the hands of the Lord of 
Palatine ; he shall yet be a prisoner in your hands. 
You shall weave the chain for him which he weaves 
for you. You shall give back the sneers to him 
that he has given to you. You shall deny the 
privileges to him that he has denied to you. You 
shall put his men down in the valley and put the 
men of the valley on Palatine Hill. I am weary 
till the work is done, that I may get back to my 
glory. Think you it is a light thing to leave my 
glory ? Think you I am made of your common 
clay? Nay, Lady Ecclesia, I have descended as 
far beneath myself in coming to you as you have 
descended beneath yourself in becoming a servant 
of the Lord of Palatine. Truly I am called the 
son of the star. I am unused to toil ; I am 
unpractised in sorrow ; I am a stranger to tears. 
And I shall make you, Lady Ecclesia, toilless, 
sorrowless, tearless. You shall stand upon the 
hill and dictate to valley and plain. You shall 
make others do your work ; your enemies shall 
bear your burdens. You shall dwell aloft like 
my star ; you shall shun the battle and the strife. 
You shall look down with calm unconcern upon 
the dwarfs beneath you, for the spray of the sea 



262 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

of trouble shall not touch your feet, and its murmur 
shall not reach your ear. You shall " 

" For the sake of all that is good," I cried, " be 
silent and begone ; your contrast to the man of 
the valleys maddens me ! " 

The eyes of the giant flashed. " And does the 
Lady Ecclesia deem," he said, " that I am so poor 
as to have only one vesture? Does she think I 
am limited to a single form of appearance? Is 
she not aware that I can change my garment con- 
tinually, so that none can detect the old covering ? 
Surely she knows little of the power of God." 

" I could detect the man of the valleys," I said, 
" in any form — even in your form. It is not by 
the change in your vesture that I feel your con- 
trast to him. It is by that which lies below your 
vesture — your spirit. Even if you came in his 
very image I would know you were not he. You 
are nowhere so unlike him as when you speak. 
You talk too grandly to be divine. He never 
addressed me as the Lady Ecclesia ; he spoke to 
me as a woman. He never called me the latest 
scion of the most royal house ; the most royal 
house was to him the servant of all. He never 
styled himself ' the son of the star ' ; they who 
have always dwelt among stars are unconscious 
of their own splendour. They know less about it 



THE FIRST WORLDLY TEMPTATION 263 

than those outside. It is their atmosphere, and 
they feel not that they breathe it You have 
never betrayed so small an origin as when you 
have revelled in your height" 

I paused, for the ungainly face before me was lit 
up by a gleam of lurid fire. Hitherto I had shud- 
dered ; for the first time I trembled. It began to 
dawn upon me that this was no impostor, but a 
madman. The glare of insanity glittered in his 
eye, and his voice grew stern. " And this," he 
said, " is gratitude ! This is the reward of him 
who has come to redeem you from slavery, to 
break the iron fetters and set the prisoner free! 
You treat me with contempt because I do not 
proclaim the glories of a quagmire. Then, Lady 
Ecclesia, I must save you against your will. This 
island needs you ; this island waits for you. The 
fugitives of last night's battle require but a 
stimulus. One word from you will raise the clan 
of Israel, and that word must be spoken to-day." 
He drew forth a parchment roll like that used by 
the man of the valleys, but with gilt edges, and of 
much finer quality of paper. "There once," he 
said, " was a roll taken in which the valleys took 
the lead, and your name was conspicuous by its 
absence. This roll shall rectify the mistake ; you 
shall lead and the valleys shall follow. They shall 



264 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

know that this voice comes not from the vale, but 
from the hill. See, the spaces are as yet all blank ; 
in the name of the Lord of Hosts I command you 
to write the first signature in the list of those who 
elect to follow me." 

He put writing materials before me, and bade me 
sign. " I have already," I said, " signed my name 
to the roll of the man of the valleys, and it was 
signed after the valleys. Every man rises in his 
own order, and I dare not alter the order which 
was fixed by him** 

" I unfix it now," he cried ; and his hand was 
clenched in anger. " Has not God power to reverse 
His own decrees ? Who are you that you should 
raise your will against the Lord's anointed ? Who 
are you that you should gainsay the messenger of 
Omnipotence ? Who are you that you should pre- 
sume to counsel him whom God has sent to lift 
your people from the mire? Heaven can wait no 
longer on the whims of a mortal. Sign, sign, sign ! " 

His attitude was so threatening that I began to 
congratulate myself on the precautions taken by 
the captain. "Leave me," I said, "or it may be 
the worse for you. I have not come here un- 
guarded. There is a band of the Lord of Palatine's 
soldiers outside. If you molest me I shall call on 
them." 



THE FIRST WORLDLY TEMPTATION 265 

The effect was not what I expected. Quick as 
thought he placed himself between me and the 
door; and his face became absolutely livid with 
rage. " And has it come to this ? " he cried. " I 
always knew you were a captive of the Lord of 
Palatine ; I did not know you were an ally. I did 
not know that the head of a clan ordained by God 
to smite His enemies could make common cause 
with these enemies. I did not dream that a 
daughter of Moses ben- Israel could call out the 
retainers of another clan to oppress the servants of 
her own. I pitied you as a slave galled beneath 
her chain ; little did I deem that the chain was 
dear to you. I thought you a victim ; I have 
found you a traitor. I came to redeem you from 
another race ; I find I must redeem your own race 
from you. God shall remove the candlestick out 
of its place and put another in its room. There 
are others who can take up the cause which the 
degenerate daughter of the old line has betrayed, 
and they shall begin by taking vengeance on 
their betrayer. Say, Lady Ecclesia, will you 
repent or die ? " 

He drew from his side a shining dagger. For 
the fourth time in my life I was very near to death. 
This was the hardest time. In the valley, in the 
sick-room, in the oratory, I would at least have 



266 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

had support — that support which comes from the 
presence of high emotion. Here there was no 
previous height I had been in low contact, and 
I felt lowered. The atmosphere was depressing, 
degrading, and it affected my courage. I showed 
miserable want of spirit for one of my clan. I 
shrank back ; I retreated within the curtain of 
another compartment. He followed me, pointing 
the glittering blade, and reiterating the words 
" Sign or die ! " 

And now, swifter than I can tell, the thought 
came to me how, in the vision of my night wander- 
ings, he whom I loved had promised to be near 
me in every hour of danger in which I called. 
I called now — rather with my mind than with my 
lips, for I have always felt that the most powerful 
parts of prayer are the unspoken parts. I fixed 
my inner eye upon his image — that image which 
I kept locked up in my heart. I gazed on my 
fancy's picture with a look so intense that the 
image was burned into my soul. I do not know 
whether this inward sight of mine had anything to 
do with the strange thing which followed. 

The fanatic came on, brandishing his weapon. 
He stood within an inch of me, and his eyes 
glared. " Do you accept me as your redeemer ? " 
he said. st Sign or die ! " I kept my gaze stead- 



THE FIRST WORLDLY TEMPTATION 267 

fastly fixed on the beautiful face in my heart, and 
said, " 1 have signed once ; I cannot revoke that 
writing." I felt, rather than saw, that his hand 
was raised ; the inner picture was between me and 
the dagger ; it was that alone which kept me from 
swooning. I was conscious of an arm uplifted to 
strike. Then I heard a great cry. It came not 
from me, but from my assailant. Suddenly he fell 
back. The glare of his eyes subsided into an 
expression of abject terror. He turned his look 
away from me and fixed it on a corner of the tent ; 
and in broken, hurried accents he began to speak. 

" Who is it ? One of the guardian angels of the 
house of Palatine ? It must be. That is no island 
visitor. He never came in at the door. Do you 
not see him? He bears in one hand a chalice, 
and in the other a cross of gold, and on his breast 
is fastened a parchment roll, very like my roll, but 
plainer. Even at this distance I can read the 
names on the roll, they are so legible ; and the 
first name is Ecclesia. He is coming nearer, 
nearer — this angel of the Palatines. He is burning 
me with his splendour ; he is blinding me with 
his light. If he touches me, I shall be consumed. 
Keep him back, Lady Ecclesia. Send him away. 
Speak a word of mercy for one of your old clan. 
I can fight with men, but not with spirits. He is 



268 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

coming nearer still. Save me, and you shall be 
free. Help ! help ! help ! " And with a shriek 
that would have raised the dead the fanatic made 
wildly for the door, passed out into the open, and 
vanished from my life for ever. With his after 
fate I have here no concern. I was glad then, 
I am glad now, that he did not meet his end 
through me. In my own heart there was no room 
for aught but grateful love. I poured it out in 
that hour to him whose image of beauty, painted 
in my mind, had in some way to me unknown, 
and perhaps unknowable, been communicated to 
the eye of another and made to testify to the 
presence of a protective power. 



CHAPTER XXV 
THE SECOND WORLDLY 7EMPTATI0N 

YOU may be surprised to hear that I was 
able to resume my journey so soon after 
a scene so exciting. The truth is, I felt more 
refreshed after the scene than I had been before 
it. I had been refreshed by a presence ; I had 
been saved by him whom 1 loved. I do not 
think, if I had been rescued by any other means, 
I would have been ready for the journey. Mere 
salvation from death would have left a pain be- 
hind. But when the hand that rescued was a 
hand of love, the weight of affliction was trans- 
formed into a more exceeding weight — a weight 
of glory. 

In looking back I think the danger was sent 
to me for the sake of the presence, not the 
presence for the sake of the danger. I think 
what I wanted at that time was another mani- 
festation of some sort. My reason for this belief 

269 



270 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

is that when we resumed our journey our road 
became gradually more inland. Hitherto we had 
kept sight of the sea. We now began to strike 
into an interior direction, where the view of the 
coast was impeded by foliage, and where the 
murmur of the waters did not reach our ear. 
Now I do not know what the men of Palatine 
might feel, but to me the transition from the 
sea-view to the land-view has always been spirit- 
ually depressing. The tendency to look over 
the waves, and dream of lands beyond, was born 
with me. I could no more help it than I could 
help thirst or hunger. And there was more 
than that. The more I looked at the sea, the 
better I lived on the land. Nothing to me ever 
helped the realities of life like its so-called dreams. 
Wherever these dreams were rare, wherever the 
sight of the sea was faint and its murmur low, 
wherever the odour of the brine had failed to 
reach me and the breath of the deep ceased to 
penetrate me, I had always felt that my walk 
was less lofty and my steps less secure. 

To lose sight of the sea, therefore, was to me 
no advantage. In the depressed circumstances 
in which I stood, I required the aid of every 
stimulus which nature could furnish ; and the 
absence of this would have been a great loss if 



THE SECOND WORLDLY TEMPTATION 271 

it had not been counterbalanced by the imparting 
of that other and higher stimulus — the sense of 
communion with the object of my love. But I 
had more to consider than myself in this matter. 
I was afraid of the influence of a prosaic atmo- 
sphere on my domestics. I heard in the rear two 
of my maid-servants laughing hilariously with 
some of the military retainers of the house of 
Palatine. Now I see no harm in hilarity either 
between the same or different sexes. But it 
seemed to me that this was not the time for 
it. That the servants of my house should make 
merry when that house itself was wrecked, its 
master on the sea, and its mistress a captive, 
perhaps on her road to death — that they should 
be merry, moreover, in the companionship of those 
very men who had wrecked the house, banished 
the master, and imprisoned the mistress — appeared 
to me a thing which indicated a moral decline 
and called for grave reflection. Then a thought 
of charity came to my aid. I remembered that 
I had an equivalent for the sea which my father's 
servants, with the exception of Phcebe, as yet 
had not. I began to think that I had been too 
harsh in my judgment. Was not this power to 
be amused with trifles itself a gift of God to 
those who had not reached the gate of real 



272 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

pleasure? Should I not thank Him for it, praise 
Him for it? And about the sea itself there 
came another thought. Was it really lost ? Would 
it recede farther the farther I advanced ? No. 
It was not the distance which hid it ; it was the 
foliage of the wood. It was hid only because I 
was not far enough up the hill. When I reached 
Palatine and looked down from the light of to- 
morrow's sun, I would get it all back again. It 
would burst upon me with all its full glory ; it 
would break upon me with all its breezes. Palatine 
might take much from me — name, freedom, life 
itself. But even if it was my fate to die, I would 
have first the consolation of a sight reminding 
of home — that mysterious expanse where my 
Divine Father moved and where my human 
father sojourned. 

We arrived at the second plateau. Here, ac- 
cording to arrangement, we pitched our tents 
and dined. I had the use of my own tent, and 
two of my domestics waited on me — the very 
two whose merriment had caused me such anxiety. 
In the circumstances I would have asked them 
to partake at the same table ; but I felt they 
themselves would be happier elsewhere. I there- 
fore dispensed with much serving, and dismissed 
them early to the rear. I kept Phoebe with me. 



THE SECOND WORLDLY TEMPTATION 273 

During the meal I experienced a renewal of 
my ascetic feelings. It was caused by a fresh 
outburst of that roistering mirth which had dis- 
turbed me on the march. It was now more 
pronounced because it was more general. The 
comforts of the dining hour, the relaxation after 
fatigue, the influence of companionship, perhaps 
above all the impulse to forget, tended to make 
my retainers oblivious of their care, and their 
voices were amongst the loudest. The men of 
Palatine had seen too much of life's comfortable 
side to be easily carried away by it ; but to the 
servants of my house the superfluity was a new 
thing. This was in a measure their excuse. And 
yet I confess that to me it was like the clapping 
of hands over some amusing incident at a trial 
for life or death. The scenes through which they 
had passed had not been of a nature to dispel 
gravity in an hour. They had seen not only the 
sorrows of their own house but the sorrows of 
humanity. They had just been in contact with 
a hospital where the most prominent feature 
visible was the inhumanity of man to his brother, 
where the weakest were sent to the wall and 
only those preserved who had little need of a 
physician. Was this a state of things to make 
one smile ? Was this a picture to evoke laughter 

18 



274 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

or leave room for mirth? If the end of the old 
things had failed to sadden, surely there was 
much to make solemn in the aspect of the new. 
After the meal I came out upon the plateau. My 
eyes rested first upon those of my own house. I 
was already anxious about them ; I found some- 
thing to strengthen my anxiety. I was startled to 
see that every member of the household, except 
Phoebe, had undergone a process of physical 
adornment. Upon the arm of each, whether 
male or female, was encircled a band of purple 
silk, into which, with threads of gold, was woven 
the form of an eagle. What did it mean ? I 
knew well enough to whom the insignia belonged ; 
they were badges of the house of Palatine. The 
purple was the symbol of dominion over the 
island, and the eagle was the family emblem of 
unretarded upward flight. But why did not the 
house of Palatine keep its symbols? What had 
they to do with me or mine? I sent Phoebe 
to inquire of her fellow-servants ; I thought she 
might get more unreserved information than I. 
She returned in a few minutes and said : " They 
say they got them as a present from the captain 
of the guard, and they are loud in his praises. 
He gave them in simple kindness, with a view 
to make them look well and feel happy." 



THE SECOND WORLDLY TEMPTATION 275 

Two things were clear to me : they did fancy 
they looked well, and they did really feel happy. 
The first was a delusion : nobody looks well in 
a costume above his sphere, and none knew that 
better than the captain of the guard. Of course 
I detected that there was a concealed reason. But 
I was very glad my servants did not detect it. I 
was glad it took in their minds so harmless a 
form as the providing of a means of decoration. 
It was plaintive, if somewhat pitiful, to see how 
proud they were of their new toy — how they 
looked at it, handled it, dandled it, posed in 
attitudes where it could be prominently seen. 
There is no sin in men and women admiring 
beauty — not even their own beauty. The sole 
question is, What will they do with it ? will they 
exhibit with it or will they minister with it? 
Remember, no girl ever had a clearer revelation 
of her own natural attractions than I had in that 
old mirror ; but to me it came not as a message 
of self-conceit, but as a command to self-sacrifice. 
Let me cease preaching, however, and proceed 
with my narrative. 

While I was meditating on the occurrence, a 
hand was laid on my arm. I looked round, and 
the captain stood before me. He held out a band 
of identical nature to that which I had seen the 



276 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

servants wear. " Lady Ecclesia," he said, " will 
you oblige me by putting on this ? " 

" Why should / put it on ? " I said. " It is a 
badge of the house of Palatine." 

" Lady Ecclesia," he replied, " let me speak to 
you ; let me reason with you. The pressure of 
the time justifies my boldness. You are in great 
danger. You are hurrying up the hill to an 
unknown destiny. This night, or to-morrow at 
latest, you will stand before the judgment-seat 
of a man of peculiar sternness — a man who claims 
to have received from fate the sovereignty of this 
island, and who can brook no interference with 
his prerogative. He has been much fretted of 
late. He is suspicious of his own household ; 
he is more than suspicious of yours. You cannot 
deny that your family has given him reason to 
be angry ; your clan was yesterday in open revolt. 
With that movement you have professed to have 
no sympathy. Show that you have none. Put 
on this badge of loyalty to the present system of 
things. Your servants have already assumed it." 

" You forget," I said, " that they are no longer 
my servants, or rather the servants of my father ; 
if they were, they would have had no choice in 
this matter. But if I could assume your badge 
as the servants do it, I would not scruple for two 



THE SECOND WORLDLY TEMPTATION 277 

minutes. It is to them a simple gew-gaw, a pretty 
thing. If I could think it merely pretty, I would 
put it on with pleasure ; I believe I admire beauty 
more than the house of Palatine does. But this 
badge is not merely pretty ; it is very solemn. 
It is the statement of a creed ; it is a confession 
of faith. It is the declaration that I have taken 
a particular life as the ideal of all life. I have 
done that once, and I can do it no more. There 
can be no two ideals in my universe." 

" Lady Ecclesia," said the captain, " you are 
wrong ; your conscience is leading you mad. It 
is no confession of faith you are asked to make ; 
it is no ideal of life you are pledged to follow. 
You are desired merely to attest a present fact. 
Let me put but one question. Do you or do 
you not acknowledge that the Lord of Palatine 
is now the ruler of this island?" 

" I not only acknowledge it," I said, " but I 
believe that up to this time he has been the ruler 
of the island by divine right." 

" Then," cried the captain, " all I ask is that you 
should state that fact and that belief by wearing 
on your arm the signs of his dominion." 

" Pardon me," I answered, " to wear these signs 
would imply very much more. What is a badge ? 
Is it not a mark to indicate that what I profess 



278 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

is the best thing known to me ? Do you think 
the Lord of Palatine is the best thing known to 
me? Do you think he is the hill to which I lift 
up my eyes for aid ? A starry night is better than 
a starless one, and he that has never seen the 
day may assume a badge in its honour. But I 
have seen the day, and I cannot worship the star. 
I believe the Lord of Palatine to be the best man 
for the hour; but I do not believe the hour will 
last for ever. Will he outlast it? That depends 
on himself. He is fit for the old hour: will he 
be adequate to the new? Who can tell? Shall 
I presume to tell? Shall I take a pledge of 
eternal fidelity to that which to-morrow may be 
out of harmony with all things ? I cannot ; I 
dare not. Over the servants I have no control, 
and what they wear is to them no badge at all. 
But in me it would be an act of treason. I have 
already a badge. You saw it this morning at 
the front of the military hospital. I cured by 
it then ; I live by it now ; I can never replace 
it by another." 

" Lady Ecclesia," said the captain, and he had 
lost his wonted calmness, " think you it is for the 
sake of the Lord of Palatine that I plead with 
you ? Think you it is to preserve his ideal that 
I ask you to wear this emblem ? No, Lady 



THE SECOND WORLDLY TEMPTATION 279 

Ecclesia, it is to preserve your own. It is because 
I wear a badge for you that I ask you to wear 
one for the Lord of Palatine. What interest have 
I in him beyond the fact that he holds your life 
in his hands? Listen, for at last I shall speak. 
I am a rough soldier. I have been commissioned 
from youth to curb refractory spirits. I came to 
put the bonds on you. You were the physically 
frailest foe I had ever tackled ; it was the meeting 
of extremes. But you conquered me — conquered 
in the moment of your surrender. You put the 
bonds on me which I meant for you. What is 
it, Lady Ecclesia, that has attracted my life to 
yours ? Is it the contrast between man's strength 
and woman's weakness ? No ; it is the discovery 
that the weakness may be strong. It was your 
strength that made me admire you ; I have been 
true to the instincts of my clan. Your beauty 
might have sufficed for a retainer of Hellenicus, 
but hardly for a servant of the Lord of Palatine. 
What I admired in you was the kindred element 
of power. I saw you stand In your father's house 
and plead for your own condemnation ; and the 
iron of your courage attracted my soul. I saw 
you in that house again — in the terror of yester- 
eve and the tragedy of this morning's dawn. I 
saw you alone, yet undismayed, deserted, yet 



2 8o THE LADY ECCLESIA 

fearless, clinging like the ivy to a ruined wall ; 
and I swore a great oath within my heart, and 
cried, ' This is not a life which I shall suffer to 
perish.' " 

I grasped his hand, for I was touched. "And 
do you know," I said, " why your words gratify 
me? It is because I feel that they are not 
meant for me. That which you admire in me 
is not mine. It is a reflection. It is what the 
blue is to the sea, what the red is to the rose. 
It has been painted into my heart by a great 
light — the light of love. I have seen one who 
has transformed me — him whom I followed down 
to the valleys, him whom I now follow up the 
hill. Men say that he is dead, but it is not true. 
He is the light of all my days ; he is the flower 
of all my ways ; he is the hymn of all my praise. 
If I could sing from morn to eve, there would 
be but one cadence, 'I love him, I love him, I 
love him.' I am not ashamed of my love. I 
hide it not ; I blush for it not ; I veil it not in 
the face of the Lord of Palatine. I vaunt it; I 
am proud of it ; I rejoice in it. I bear on my 
breast the badge of my devotion, and no other 
badge shall ever come near it." 

As I finished speaking I drew forth the little 
cross and kissed it. There were two things I 



THE SECOND WORLDLY TEMPTATION 281 

wanted the captain to feel — that I accepted the 
sympathy he expressed, and that I had warded 
off the hope he had left unexpressed. I felt that 
if to the mind of this man I myself should become 
a substitute for my cause, it would be building 
for him an impossible aim. I wanted to keep 
him for the cause, not for me ; therefore I threw 
into the foreground the preoccupation of my 
heart. For his part I am bound to state that 
I think anxiety covered every other feeling. " Are 
you determined then," he said, "to refuse this 
conformity?" "Absolutely," I replied. "Then," 
said he, with a strange identification of interest, 
" may the God of your fathers help us ! " 



CHAPTER XXVI 
PALATINE HOUSE 

YOU will remember the arrangement was that 
after dining on the second plateau I was 
to abandon the foot march, and, mounting horse, 
was to ride forward with the captain in advance. 
This latter part of the journey therefore, though 
the most difficult, was likely to be that of the 
quickest movement. It was like the stages of 
life itself. The later stages are more arduous 
than the earlier ; yet I think we move quicker 
through them. 

As I was now within measurable distance of the 
House of Palatine, I began to contemplate the 
nature of that house. Of course I had seen it 
before. During the days of my friendship with 
Hellenicus I had been more than once within its 
courts. I was no stranger to its peculiarities either 
outside or inside. It was this very fact which gave 
me food for contemplation. If Palatine had been 



PALATINE HOUSE 283 

to me an unknown quantity, anxious thought might 
have been forgotten in curiosity. 

I think, therefore, this will be the best time to 
indicate the peculiarities of the house into which 
I was going. I am no advocate for occupying a 
narrative of life with a description of buildings. I 
shall not consider this building in detail. I shall 
confine myself to that which was distinctive about 
it — to that which is significant of the House of 
Palatine. There is a correspondence between the 
dress and the mind. The house of the Lord of 
Palatine was like its master. It was the miniature 
of his dominion everywhere. It expressed in 
small compass the whole character of the man. 
The plan of such a dwelling deserves a moment's 
notice. 

When one had proceeded for some way through 
the grounds of Palatine, the avenue leading to the 
house broke into two paths — one sloping upward, 
the other running level. These two paths were 
joined by the house, which had two entrances — one 
on the low ground, the other on the high. The 
former faced the south ; the latter looked to the 
north. The first, or ground-floor entrance, was 
approached from the low road, and was set apart 
exclusively for the domestics and household re- 
tainers. This lower part of the house contained 



284 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

two stories. They were both appropriated to the 
servants — that on the ground floor for culinary 
operations, and that immediately above for sleep- 
ing accommodation. The entrance on the upper 
road, which faced the opposite direction, was kept 
exclusively for the Lord of Palatine and his guests. 
This part of the building differed from the lower 
part in having windows both to the north and 
to the south. Here also there were two stories. 
The first story consisted of dining-rooms, sitting- 
rooms, libraries, and the great hall of judgment ; 
the second contained a suite of bedrooms. 

Between the lower and higher parts of this build- 
ing there ran an inside stair, which formed the 
channel of communication for the domestics. I 
say " for the domestics." The only communication 
desired by the Lord of Palatine was on the part of 
the servants. It was essential that they should 
come up to him ; but he did not wish ever to go 
down to them. In point of fact he never did go 
down. He went in and out by a different gate. 
He walked on a higher level. He moved on his 
own ground. The voices of his domestics, except 
when they served him, never reached his ear ; their 
laughter and their tears were alike inaudible. He 
provided for their wants, but he provided at a 
distance. He was to them what the God of 



PALATINE HOUSE 285 

heaven was to us — a majestic power in the air, a 
presence they were bound to obey, but which in 
their own sphere they could never meet. 

The house was, in fact, an architectural decep- 
tion. Looked at in the distance, it presented an 
aspect of unity. It seemed to be a gigantic centre 
for all classes in the island, a place where could 
meet the representatives of every order of men. 
One felt that he was beholding an umbrageous 
tree, beneath whose ample shade the different 
ranks of mankind, caught in a common shower, 
could gather together for a few moments, and 
forget their differences in the sense of a common 
protection. 

But how unlike all this was the fact. When the 
traveller came near, the illusion vanished which the 
distance had yielded. Here was indeed a single 
building : but was it really a single house ? Its 
parts were rigidly connected so far as stone and 
lime could connect them. There was even provided 
a means of inward communication between the 
lower and the higher stories. But there was also 
provided a means by which the inmate of the upper 
stories could avoid this communication — a means by 
which he could, if he liked, pass by on the other 
side. And he did like ; there lay the barrier. No 
inmates of any two dwellings could be farther apart 



286 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

than the occupants of these two respective stories. 
Architecture had provided for their union, but the 
will of man had severed them. As one of our 
poets would have put it, the fire and the wood were 
there, but not the burnt-offering. All the materials 
were present for a sacrifice of human pride ; but 
human pride itself refused to be sacrificed. So far 
as the descent of the master was concerned the 
inside stair was useless. The house was very like 
an allegory of what this island might have been ; 
and I have more than once caught myself thinking 
what a splendid residence it would be if the Lord 
of Palatine were to become an adherent of the man 
of the valleys. 

The shades of evening had already fallen when, 
in company with the captain of the guard, I rode 
into the avenue which led to this remarkable build- 
ing. He had signalled his arrival by the shrill 
blast of a special instrument devised for the purpose, 
whose sound carried far. A messenger met him at 
the gate. He told the captain it was impossible 
the Lord of Palatine could see the prisoner to-night. 
I was to be kept in the state prison till the morn- 
ing. It was an edifice in the lower grounds. It 
was set apart exclusively for offenders of the graver 
sort — that is to say, for those whose crime was 
supposed to have not merely an individual but a 



PALATINE HOUSE 287 

public interest. The charge against me was that 
of no private wrong. I was impeached with treason. 
I was accused of conniving against the established 
order, of inciting to rebellion against the recognised 
ruler of the island. The imputation was based on 
the fact that I had advocated the cause of the 
valleys, declared myself a disciple of him who broke 
the gates of brass and brought humanity to man. 
I gloried in the avowal ; but I denied then, and I 
deny now, that it implied any detriment to the 
Lord of Palatine. 

We came to the cross roads ; we took the lower. 
On the way to the prison we had to pass the ground 
floor of Palatine House. The avenue looked very 
cheerless amid the gathering shadows, and some- 
thing of its gloom began to steal in upon myself. 
It was to me the road to prison, which to me meant 
a state of practical uselessness. Examine your life 
and you will find that its saddest moments were 
the moments of its enforced inactivity, the days 
when it was walled in and compelled to stand still. 
Such a prospect did this avenue present to me. I 
felt as if I were stranded, buried, cut off from the 
development of the island. And yet, would you 
believe it, this moment in which I trod the lower 
ground of Palatine was, quite unconsciously to me, 
the most effective moment my life had ever known. 



288 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

There was about to happen a circumstance, not 
only too trivial to be noticed by any history, but 
too trivial to be put in any diary, which was to 
produce an effect on this island, compared with 
which all its pageants were but dust and ashes. 

At a short distance from the house we found 
the way blocked. A crowd of male and female 
servants stood round a hand-barrow which held 
a sack of provisions. Two men were quarrelling 
violently over it, and there was evidently the 
prospect of a free fight. The cause of the dispute 
was really the question of the division of labour. 
One of the men asserted that to wheel the barrow 
farther was beyond his province, that the portion 
of ground allotted to him ended at this particular 
spot, and that the rest of the process devolved 
upon his neighbour servant The other with equal 
vehemence maintained that it was not a question 
of ground at all, but of special work — that this 
special work had been assigned to him, and that 
he was bound to finish it on his own account. 

Now do not imagine that in the mind of either 
of these belligerents the grievance was one of hard 
work. The barrow was so light that a child could 
have wheeled it easily. The sack which it carried 
was long, but of no weight whatever. The distance 
to which it was to be rolled was very short — only 



PALATINE HOUSE 289 

to a neighbouring cellar, which I had to pass on 
my way to the prison. Neither of the men would 
have pretended that it was a question of fatigue. 
It was not even a question of soiled hands, though 
the hands might get a little soiled. It was a 
question of dignity. It was assumed by both that 
to work was an undignified thing. Both had been 
compelled to work, and therefore both were more 
or less undignified. But it was better to be less 
than more. Each felt that the man who did least 
work was the nearest to the gentleman. 

As we came up the wrangling ceased. Many 
eyes were directed towards me. I saw that by 
some at least I was recognised, for I heard the 
words pass from lip to lip, " Lady Ecclesia." They 
evidently did not think one less a lady because 
she was going to prison, though they deemed one 
no gentleman who could drive a wheelbarrow. 

When I had ascertained what was the matter, 
and inquired the destination of the contemned 
vehicle, I asked the crowd to stand aside, and 
offered to reconcile parties. " I am going just in 
that direction," I said, "and shall relieve both of 
you." So saying, I stepped forward, lifted the 
handles of the barrow and wheeled it towards 
the goal. 

The domestics followed. The feeling in their 

19 



2Q0 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

minds was not amusement, not even curiosity ; 
it was awestruckness. They felt as those feel 
who are beholding a new sign in the heavens. 
That the Lady Ecclesia should go to prison was 
in the order of things ; but that the Lady Ecclesia 
should do common work was something which 
took away their breath. I spoke to them as I 
rolled my burden on. "Do not think," I said, 
" that I am condescending ; I am educating myself. 
Have you not heard of the great discovery which 
has been made ? After long searching we have 
at last received tidings of a land beyond the sea. 
We have learned that there is a country where all 
the higher people do the work, and all the lower 
orders are served. Now I am quite sure there 
is a time coming when the sea will be dried up, 
and all the people in this island will be transported 
by land to the other side. When we get there, 
we shall find that the men and women most fit 
to do menial work shall be put at the top. And 
as I am the Lady Ecclesia, and have been accus- 
tomed to be at the top, I would not like to come 
down. I am therefore training myself to be a 
servant. Servants are all the rage there. The 
fashion of this island passes away, and the fashion 
of the opposite land is coming. What we here 
call ' up ' will there be called ' down.' Should 



PALATINE HOUSE 291 

not you and I be preparing ourselves by hard 
work ? " 

I saw I had produced a profound impression, 
and it was not long in taking definite form. In 
a few minutes the two belligerents came up. They 
were still at variance, but they were no longer 
at variance on the old ground. Each insisted on 
resuming his work — not as a matter of chivalry 
to me, but as a matter of personal privilege. It 
was like men who had sold a piece of ground 
suddenly finding that there was a treasure buried 
beneath it. Each asserted with vehemence his 
claim to be the carrier ; each urged the argument 
his rival had used against himself. Words ran 
high, and the crowd again gathered, in search of 
that which is dearest to the Palatine mind — a trial 
of physical strength. I really feared they were 
coming to blows. I prevented it by running on 
in the same strain. " Do you think," I said, " that 
I am going to give up the barrow to either of you ? 
You would never be so selfish as to take from me 
my chance. It is the only chance I may have 
for years. You have a great privilege ; you have 
so much work to do that, if you are not in the front 
row, it will be your own fault. But I have had 
few opportunities. Till the age of eighteen I was 
a dreamer ; after that I was a gay lady ; then I 



292 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

was a poor invalid. I want to be something more 
than any of these. How am I to get a high place 
in the land beyond the wave if I don't get into 
service ? No, no ; you must not rob me of my 
burden till I reach the cellar door ; and while I 
am here you must give me every chance of helping 
you. If the steward has any difficult accounts 
to add up, he might send them to me in prison." 

Reader, what had I done ? " Made yourself 
immensely popular," you say. "Reconciled two 
servants," thought I. Both answers are wide of 
the mark. Little did I know that by the most 
trivial of all acts I had turned the stream of 
history. What I had reconciled was not the 
minds of two servants, but all service to the heart 
of man. At that moment, quite unconsciously 
to myself, I was standing in the dawn of a new 
day ; looking back, I can say with an old writer, 
" Surely the Lord was in this place, and I knew 
it not." I have heard much in after years of the 
abolition of compulsory service ; but the first step 
in that abolition had been taken to-day. By a 
stroke whose potency I did not dream of, I had 
made service voluntary for evermore. I had made 
it an object of desire, not of aversion. The real 
chain is not on the body, but on the mind. I 
had broken the chain on the mind, and without a 



PALATINE HOUSE 293 

change of place I had set the prisoner free. These 
primitive souls had been captured by a new 
association. Work, menial work, had in their 
imagination been dignified, glorified. It was no 
longer the part of a slave ; it was the profession 
of Lady Ecclesia, daughter of Moses ben-Israel. 
It was no longer a barrier to promotion ; it was 
the necessary training for promotion. It was no 
longer a distinction from the men and women of 
fashion ; it was itself to be the fashion of the age 
which was to come. I think, for the first time 
at that moment, the words of an ancient poet 
began to receive fulfilment : " Every valley shall be 
exalted ; the crooked shall be made straight, and 
the rough places plain." 



CHAPTER XXVII 
IN THE HALL OF JUDGMENT 

IT was morning, and my summons had come A 
message had been sent by the Lord of Palatine 
that he would meet the prisoner at noon in the hall 
of judgment on the upper floor, and that in the first 
instance he would meet her alone. I was struck 
with this latter announcement. Surely the Lord 
of Palatine was becoming more arbitrary, more 
self-asserting. He never used to act alone — never 
wished to be thought of as an autocrat. In the 
conclave where last I had seen him he had 
laboured to impress the assembly with the belief 
that he sought their advice and desired their 
countenance. He had given a representative voice 
to every part of the building, and had asked the 
physicians of a past generation to prescribe for 
the present need. Now he had set every one 
aside. He was calling no assembly ; he was sum- 
moning no conclave. He was acting as if he were 



IN THE HALL OF JUDGMENT 295 

the island personified. He was breaking the very 
semblance of a constitutional rule. I could not 
but look with dismay upon the prospect of being 
subjected to the scrutiny of a private individual, 
whose will had been rendered imperious by the 
troubles of his own house. 

Later came another message. The Lord of 
Palatine desired that the prisoner should be led 
up from the ground floor by the inner stair. For 
a moment my old pride blazed out. Who was he 
that he should treat me as one of his domestics ? 
Then a voice said within me, " Ecclesia, have you 
forgotten your own saying of last night, that 
domestics shall be all the rage in the fashion of 
the future ? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, 
Ecclesia." And so I was ; and I breathed a little 
prayer — shall I not say, rather, a little wish? — to 
him whom I loved, that he would keep my spirit 
ever in the thought that the way through the 
valleys was the way to life. 

By-and-by there was a tap at the cell-door. 
I opened it, and my heart leapt for joy ; it was 
Phoebe. She had followed in the rear with the 
other domestics. As the journey by foot was long 
and steep, they had pitched their tents for the 
night, and had only arrived this morning. She 
told me the captain of the guard had given her 



296 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

free permission to come and prepare me with 
my toilet for meeting the Lord of Palatine. 

Phoebe was very anxious that I should dress 
well ; she retained even yet the influence of the 
house of Hellenicus. She wanted me to make an 
impression, with a view to my acquittal. She had 
put in my trunk some of my costliest articles of 
raiment, and they had been brought by one of the 
waggons which carried the camp baggage. I was 
deeply grateful to the poor girl for her devotion, 
but I firmly refused her advice. " No, dear 
Phoebe," I said, " I shall keep the dress of yester- 
day — the plain travelling dress suited to the dusty 
way. Have not I declined to wear the badge of 
the Lord of Palatine ? Do you think I shall wear 
one of myself. I do not wish to defend myself; 
I wish to defend him whom I love. It would be 
no joy to me if he were accepted for my sake ; 
it would be the worst pain I have ever known. 
I go to speak for him, to clear him, to glorify 
him. There is no acquittal for me which is not 
an acquittal for him. If he is condemned, I am 
condemned with him ; if he is absolved, I am well 
content to die." 

At five minutes before noon I was led forth 
by the captain of the guard. I passed through the 
adjoining w T alk of the lower grounds ; I entered 



IN THE HALL OF JUDGMENT 297 

Palatine House by the servants' door. They were 
all there, crowded in the hall. Their faces were 
all sorrowful, some tearful ; they bowed to me 
with deep respect. I ascended the long stair, 
which was the symbol of domestic obedience. 
The first room on the summit was the great hall 
of judgment. My heart palpitated as the latch of 
the door was lifted. " Now, Lady Ecclesia," said 
the captain, " I must leave you ; you are alone ; 
be discreet as well as brave." 

I entered, and the door was shut behind me ; it 
was as if I had parted from my past for evermore. 
It was an apartment of enormous size, furnished 
chiefly with benches, chairs, and busts of the 
Lords of Palatine. In the centre was an elevated 
platform, with steps leading up to it ; but to-day 
it was unoccupied. My first impression was that 
the whole room was unoccupied, save by the busts 
of the dead. Presently my eye lighted on a 
figure seated at a writing-table. He looked up 
as I entered, and I recognised him. 

Did I ? Hardly. Was that indeed the Lord of 
Palatine ? Was that the man I had known in past 
years as the brother of Hellenicus ? Was that the 
man I had last seen presiding with eagle eye over 
the conclave of the island ? I would almost have 
imagined that the old family had become extinct, 



298 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

and that the estate had passed into other hands. 
His face was at once more impetuous and less 
commanding. There was the old fire, but not the 
old confidence. He had an air of unrest about 
him, as that of one who has lost his way. 

But if I was surprised at the change in his 
appearance, so evidently was he at that in mine. 
He started visibly when he looked at me, and 
for a few moments he gazed in astonishment. 
Yet he had seen me before. Had anything 
happened in the interval to alter me ? Oh yes ; 
it all flashed upon me in a moment. I remembered 
that night in which I had first seen the vision 
that became the ideal of my love and of my 
life. I remembered the strange increase of beauty 
that had come to me. I remembered the fasci- 
nated gaze of the servants next morning at the 
hour of prayer. I remembered the expressed 
admiration of my father. I remembered the sight 
of my own face in the mirror. I began to under- 
stand how, in spite of my plain attire, the Lord 
of Palatine was attracted. 

All this observation and reflection occupied 
only a few seconds. Suddenly the master of 
the island seemed to recollect himself. He re- 
placed the look of interest by an expression of 
haughty disdain. He was evidently determined 



IN THE HALL OF JUDGMENT 299 

to treat me as his prisoner. He did not salute 
me in any way. He signed to me to be 
seated — rather with the air of one who issues 
a mandate than of one who offers an invitation. 
I obeyed, and presently he addressed me. 

" Lady Ecclesia, it is not without regret that 
I meet you thus to-day. You are descended 
from one of the oldest lines in this island, and 
with some of your clan I have found friends in 
council. But my position in this island makes 
it imperative on me to be no respecter of persons ; 
and no height of descent shall induce me to ignore 
the claims of justice." 

" My Lord of Palatine," I said, " my confidence 
in coming into your presence is not the remem- 
brance of my descent, but of my ascent. You 
have done me a very great service in making 
me climb from the ground floor instead of enter- 
ing by the upper way. You have caused me to 
remember what I am sometimes in danger of 
forgetting — that I have become a child of the 
valleys. It is as such, my Lord of Palatine, that 
I come to you. I come to-day not from the 
height, but from the vale — from the land of 
those who labour, from the touch of those 
who toil. Do not think of my long ancestry ; 
the ancestry I claim is the length of your stair. 



3oo THE LADY ECCLESIA 

I am proud of having come up to you from the 
ranks of your people. I am proud to stand before 
you as one whose only claim to recognition is 
the possession of the common want and the 
sympathy with the common weal." 

"Ha!" cried the Lord of Palatine, "here is a 
refrain of that new evangel of which we have 
heard so much lately. And this reminds me of 
the accusation on which you appear before me. 
In what you call sympathy with the common w T eal 
you have sought to subvert my personal dominion, 
and to alter the constitution of this island as by 
law established. You have been the ringleader 
of a pestilent superstition rooted in the spirit of 
anarchy. You have lent your name to the cause of 
a man who has claimed still higher credentials than 
yours, and claimed them with the view of stimu- 
lating popular revolt. There are charges of the 
gravest character labelled on this paper before me ; 
and, by the house of my fathers, you shall answer 
them or die ! " 

"And let me begin," I said, "with that which 
you have just made — that I have been the ring- 
leader of a pestilent superstition. The superstition 
you speak of was intended to take away pestilence, 
and it fulfilled its design. I was never privileged 
to be its ringleader ; I was at first a mere spec- 



IN THE HALL OF JUDGMENT 301 

tator ; I have at best felt myself to be only a 
follower. But I have seen what you have not 
seen. I have seen this man of the valleys giving 
beauty to ashes, the oil of joy to mourning, the 
garment of praise to the spirit of heaviness. I 
have seen him take the burdens of the weary 
and the pains of the wounded and the crosses of 
the careworn. I have seen him transform that 
valley which adjoins the house of my father from 
a scene of misery into a land of promise. I have 

seen " 

" Stop ! " cried the Lord of Palatine : " to what 
end is this harangue ? Shall we judge the day by 
its morning when we have seen its afternoon ? Do 
I not know, do you not know, what has been the 
outcome of all this ? Anarchy, rebellion, the dis- 
solution of social ties, the breaking of old bonds, 
the trampling underfoot of the established order. 
Have you not yourself come red-handed from the 
scene of revolution? Have not you and your 
father cherished in your hearts a scheme for sub- 
verting the government of this island ? Have you 
not devised by secret counsels a plan by which the 
ascendency in this commonwealth shall pass from 
my hands to yours ? How do you reconcile this 
with the ideal of humility which you profess to 
follow?" 



3 o2 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

" I do not reconcile it," I exclaimed ; " my 
defence is that it is irreconcilable. I say it is 
impossible for any follower of the man of the 
valleys to approve of that rebellion. / do not. 
I lament it ; I deplore it My father, unknown 
to me, has been borne down by the stream. He 
has done wrong, and I shall plead for his pardon. 
But meantime I plead not for pardon, but for 
justice — not for justice to myself, but to him 
whom I love. I ask you to believe that none 
would shed such bitter tears over this rebellion 
as he whom they call the man of the valleys." 

" What right had the man to be in the valleys ? " 
cried the Lord of Palatine ; " what right had you 
to be in the valleys ? Did not a conclave of this 
island forbid it ? Did not I myself give the choice 
between obedience and death ? " 

" And he accepted your alternative, my Lord of 
Palatine. He did not seek a course between the 
extremes. He did not slink into the valleys by 
stealth ; he chose to die because he loved so fondly. 
I too have accepted your alternative. I too have 
gone down into the valley — not to avoid your 
decree, but to receive the fruit of its violation. I 
have braved death to follow him." 

As I uttered these words the face of the Lord of 
Palatine again betrayed that appearance of admira- 



IN THE HALL OF JUDGMENT 303 

tion which had so struck me. If I had broken 
into sobs, I believe he would have suppressed it. 
What attracted him was the glimpse in a woman 
of his own ideal of manliness. By-and-by he 
resumed something of his sternness ; but from this 
point in the interview I had the impression that 
he was a man battling against himself. 

" You say that the movement in which you were 
interested was unconnected with your father's 
rebellion. What do you make of this ? " He 
drew something from a private drawer. Great 
Heaven ! It was the roll I had seen in the 
valley — the roll I had signed in the vision of 
the night. 

"This," he resumed, "was found in the posses- 
sion of him whom you call the man of the valleys. 
Whether it has the atmosphere of humility about 
it I leave you to judge. It purports to be a list of 
those who have already inscribed their names in a 
document modestly styled the 'Book of Life/ 
It is called the ' Book of Life ' to indicate that the 
names therein written shall survive all other names 
— especially, I presume, the name of Palatine. Is 
this the offspring of humility ? " 

" It is, my Lord of Palatine, for there is nothing 
that can survive but the spirit of self-sacrifice ; and 
if your house shall survive, it must be by that 



3 o 4 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

spirit. But think you that this roll is meant to 
lessen the roll of your retainers ? Why then did I 
labour yestermorn to increase the number of your 
men preserved from war's destruction ? May I 
ask if the captain of the guard has told you what 
happened ? " 

" He has sent me a report this morning, but I 
have never opened it." 

" Could you kindly open it now ? " 

He obeyed. Strange that in circumstances like 
these I should speak of the Lord of Palatine 
obeying. Yet I had a curious sensation of be- 
coming the active instead of the passive party in 
the interview. He bent for some time over the 
parchment. The silence was broken by a few 
involuntary exclamations on his part. Then he 
looked up and asked, " Is this true ? " 

" My Lord of Palatine," I said, " you can verify 
it for yourself. You have the command of the 
hospital. Seek, inquire, investigate. You will 
find that the wards are full which used to be 
almost empty. Is not this a hopeful sign ? " 

"And how has it been done? The captain 
speaks of a golden cross which your hand alone 
could use. Have you the instrument about you ? 
I would fain examine it." 

I drew out the little cross and gave it to him. 



IN THE HALL OF JUDGMENT 305 

In the process my hand for a moment touched his 
hand. It was the first outward contact between 
the valley and the mountain. I felt a thrill of 
vibration in the hand of the Lord of Palatine. 
Had an influence passed from me to him? He 
looked for a long time fixedly at the little instru- 
ment. There are children who are so eager to 
know the secret of their plaything's charm that 
they break it in pieces to see what is inside of it. 
The Lord of Palatine looked as if he would like to 
do that. " You can't break it," I said. " You can 
piece it on to other things if you like, but you can't 
take itself to pieces ; it is one and indivisible ; it 
will submit to no analysis." 

" May I keep it for a while ? " 

I started — not at the proposal, but at the request, 
"Certainly: but why does the Lord of Palatine 
ask of his prisoner as a favour what he can demand 
as a right ? " 

"Do not think me more generous than I am. If 
the cross were of any use to me without your aid, 
I would have taken it, not asked it. Stay, this 
reminds me there is something in this room which 
we did take unasked. We took from your father's 
house one of those vials which the man of the 
valleys filled. It was found on the person of a 
servant-maid, and declared by yourself to have 

20 



3o6 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

been given her by you. That vial is suspected of 
containing matter destructive to life. What say 
you, Lady Ecclesia?" 

" That it contains matter vivifying to life." 

" Have you any witnesses ? " 

" Hundreds among the men of the valleys ; only 
two here — myself and the servant-maid you speak 
of. I shall taste the liquid in your presence to 
prove its harmlessness." 

" I am afraid, after the experience of the 
hospital, the testimony would not be deemed 
altogether conclusive. You seem to have a power 
over disease ; perhaps you may have given it to 
your maid also." 

For an instant I felt as if the way was barred. 
Then, flashing like an inspiration, there came to 
me a great thought, a bold thought, one of those 
thoughts that rise to us only in emergencies. 
" Be it so, my Lord of Palatine," I said ; " I shall 
produce a witness from whose testimony there 
shall be no appeal— a witness whose evidence shall 
be undisputed and indisputable, and whose autho- 
rity shall be paramount even with you. Bring 
forth the vial, and I shall call the witness." 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE JUDGMENT 

HE held up the little vial, and the red liquid 
sparkled in the sun. My heart went back 
with a great bound. I stood again in the shadows 
of the night, and saw the one form to me in all 
the world. 

" Now, Lady Ecclesia," said my judge, " fulfil 
your pledge. I have produced the altar: where 
is the victim? Have you found a man or 
woman outside of your interest who is willing to 
be your witness to the innocuous character of this 
liquid?" 

" I have." 

" Name that witness, and I shall summon him-at 
a moment's notice." 

" There is no need ; he is here." 

He cast round the room a quick, suspicious 
glance. Then compassion overspread his face 
He evidently thought I was under the influence of 

3°7 



308 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

insanity, and believed an unseen help to be in the 
room which would be made visible when the time 
came. " Ah, Lady Ecclesia," he said, " the aid 
you seek is not admissible to courts of law. We 
require a witness of flesh and blood." 

" And he is here," I repeated. " I bring no 
ghostly agency to testify to my truth. My witness 
shall be in the flesh, not in the spirit." 

" And who is this remarkable man who is so 
near that he needs no summoning, yet of whose 
presence I see no sign ? " 

" You, my Lord of Palatine — you yourself." 

His face expressed blank amazement. For a 
moment he seemed to doubt if he had heard 
aright. I fixed my eyes full upon him ; I had 
observed that whenever I did so the fascination 
returned. " You, my Lord of Palatine, shall be my 
witness this day. Yours shall be the testimony 
which shall go forth to all the island and to 
all the years that this is not a draught of 
death. The records of your house tell how your 
ancestors of old time vindicated the honour 
of woman. You shall do it again to-day. You 
shall trust me ; you shall taste this liquid ; you 
shall make the plunge of faith. And why shall 
you trust me? Because I, your prisoner, have 
trusted you. I have put into your hands the 



THE JUDGMENT 309 

dearest possession I have ; all the riches of the 
island would not make up for its loss. I might 
have concealed my possession of the treasure ; 
but I trusted you. I knew you to be a man — 
a man of Palatine. I felt that, however arbitrary 
you may be, however relentless, however inexor- 
able, you are just. I recognised a stream of 
blood in your veins as free from the taint of 
meanness as the red liquid in that vial. I trusted 
you. I paid you a more true act of homage 
than if I had put on the badge of the house 
of Palatine. Think you that chivalry can be 
given only from the strong to the weak ? It 
can come from the weak to the strong. I have 
been chivalrous to you, my Lord of Palatine. 
I have reposed my faith in you in the hour of 
my dependence, in the hour when you have 
broken my wing. Give me back the trust I gave 
to you — not the thing I entrusted, but the spirit 
in which I gave it. Repose in the bird with 
broken wing that faith which, even with broken 
wing, the bird has reposed in the honour of her 
fowler." 

I ceased. There was a moment's silence, like 
the pause of the traveller at the meeting of two 
crossways. Before my eyes floated the image 
of him I loved, and with my heart I called on 



310 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

him. Then a soft light swept over the stern 
face of the Lord of Palatine — a light which 
mitigated its sternness without lessening its char- 
acter. In that moment he left his brother 
Hellenicus far behind even in the race for 
beauty. He poised the vial an instant in his 
hand ; then calmly, fearlessly he raised it to his 
lips and said, " I will be your witness, Lady 
Ecclesia." 

It was done. With almost any other man I 
would have awaited the result with some anxiety. 
It is true I knew that the liquid was harmless ; 
but I knew also that the most harmless things 
may become hurtful if they are drugged by the 
imagination. This vial had been tabooed through- 
out the island as a dangerous thing. It was 
like the traditional water of Marah. Men had 
called it bitter beforehand ; and what we prejudge 
as bitter is apt to become so in its effects. As 
it was, I knew the Lord of Palatine was incapable 
of fear. What would be the influence of this 
liquid ? I had seen how it acted on Phoebe ; 
it had supplied her one need — strength of character. 
The Lord of Palatine had too much strength 
of character already ; what he wanted was a 
sense of dependence — shall I not rather say, the 
confession that he had it ? No one shall convince 



THE JUDGMENT 31 1 

me that he did not already feel the burden to 
be too heavy for him. If he could only accept 
a higher power, I knew he must give in. 

Presently he sprang from the chair on which 
he was sitting, with a quick, convulsive move- 
ment. Was he ill ? Was he angry ? Was he 
ashamed of having played the part of a disciple ? 
I thought he was going to address me. No ; 
he was looking right ahead. He was staring 
into the corner, like the man I had seen on the 
first plateau — but with a difference. That had 
been a look of fear ; there was no fear on the 
face of the Lord of Palatine. There was an 
expression no one had ever seen there before, 
the only thing wanted to make him look noble — ■ 
wonder. For the first time in his life he was 
awestruck, passive, reverent, conscious of a greater 
power in the island. One moment he gazed 
spellbound ; then on the floor of his own judg- 
ment-hall he dropped upon his knees. 

" Man of the valleys," he cried, " you have 
conquered. Be you whom you may, come you 
whence you may, you have beaten me in the 
battle, and I yield. You have burst the bars of 
my dwelling and surprised me in my judgment- 
hall ; yours is the last judgment, and I bow. I 
throw my crown at your feet to take it from 



3 i2 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

your hand. Henceforth I shall reign for you — 
only for you." 

I was now seriously alarmed. I had never 
feared the Lord of Palatine's power ; I trembled 
before his humility. Those who have seen a 
strong man for the first time weep will know 
something of my sensation. Never had the 
Lord of Palatine been to me so awful as in that 
moment of prostration. I felt as if I had ex- 
tinguished an oak of the forest. I forgot the 
gulf between the prisoner and the judge. I forgot 
the etiquette between the man and the woman. 
I ran forward. I took him by the hand. I led 
him back passively to the old place. "Are you 
ill, my Lord of Palatine ? " I said. " Do you 
not know me? I am Ecclesia, your prisoner." 

" No," he said, " I am yours ; the last judgment 
has reversed the first. Let me feel the touch 
of your hand ; there is a light in my eyes which 
hides the sight of you. Did you not see that 
presence ? " 

" I have seen no presence in the room but 
yours." 

"There has never been such a form within 
the walls of Palatine. I have seen beautiful men 
like my brother Hellenicus ; but their beauty 
seemed a reproach to them. This man's beauty 



THE JUDGMENT 313 

was power — invincible power, compelling power. 
My pride went down before him like a leaf 
before the hurricane. He stood there with the 
figure of a man and the face of a God ; and in 
his hand was a golden cup which sparkled with 
the very liquid in this vial ; and on his breast 
was a golden cross — the very image of the 
cross I hold ; and on the cross were written 
golden letters, and the words were these, ' By 
this conquer.' " 

He rose hurriedly and paced the room, as if 
to dispel sentiment. Even at this hour the Lord 
of Palatine was true to himself; he made a 
strength of his very humility. " And by this I 
shall conquer," he said. " I shall make a new 
empire in this island, and the sons of Palatine 
shall bow to the man of the valleys. I shall 
have his picture hung in every hamlet, that the 
mothers may know what I want their children 
to be. Lady Ecclesia, do you know that wondrous 
art by which men inscribe upon the canvas the 
likeness of what they love ? It is not common 
either to your clan or mine ; but you are above 
your clan and mine. You have the lineaments of 
this man's face and form painted in your heart. 
Could you express them to the eyes of the island ? 
I could get thousands of impressions taken." 



3 i4 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

" I am an indifferent artist, my Lord of Palatine ; 
and were I great and gifted, this form and face 
would transcend me. But if my art is poor, 
my love, I think, is almost perfect. It may be 
that love may lend wings to soar where the 
feet cannot climb. As you say, I need no creative 
genius ; the lineaments have been painted within 
me. Can I express that which is within me ? 
Poorly, dimly. My pencil can only follow afar 
off. His beauty runs before me and escapes me. 
All I could hope to catch would be the sight of 
him in the distance. I tremble, but I shall try." 

" Yes, and you shall succeed ; and a new 
morning shall dawn ; and this aged island shall 
grow young again. And I shall plant the impress 
of this picture at the threshold of every path of 
youth — in the market-place, in the forum, in 
the camp, in the chapel, in the festive gathering, 
in the servants' hall. It shall be to the young 
men and women of this island what the bush 
was to your ancestor Moses ; it shall set them 
on fire before they go. The mountain shall be 
kindled by the rays of the valley, and Palatine 
shall bask in the light of the evening sun." 

" And what of mature years, my Lord of 
Palatine ? You speak of those on the threshold : 
what of those who have passed the threshold 



THE JUDGMENT 315 

and gone wrong ? My ancestor Moses was no 
youth when he saw the bush. What of my 
father ? You have heard from the captain's 
report how he is out on the salt sea. Shall 
no effort be made to rekindle his morning ? " 

" Yes, yes, yes ; my ships shall scour the waves 
in search of him. We shall seek him ; if alive, 
we shall bring him back to you. That sea has 
for me a new significance. It used to be but 
so much salt and water ; it now beckons me on 
by its mystery. Never fear, Lady Ecclesia ; we 
shall yet pierce the veil. But have you nothing 
more to ask than this ? I at least have something 
more to offer." And the Lord of Palatine uttered 
words which demand a chapter of their own. 



CHAPTER XXIX 
THE THIRD WORLDLY TEMPTATION 

TTTHAT I am going to relate may be deemed 

* * a psychological absurdity. That a judge 

should pass in a brief interview from a conviction 

of the prisoner's guilt to a persuasion of the 

prisoner's innocence is not a strange thing. But 

that a man in the course of a brief interview 

with a woman should pass iro.ii an attitude of 

vituperation into the extremest possible opposite 

may seem contrary to all rule. I would remind 

the reader, however, whether he be in this island 

or in regions yet unexplored, that the time passed 

in this interview was time on the mount. I was 

conscious all through of an accelerating process by 

which every moment carried the weight of a day. 

There are flowers which spring up in a night. Do 

you think they are specially privileged ? Do you 

think they have been allowed to escape a little 

bit of the process of natural growth ? No, gentle 

316 



THE THIRD WORLDLY TEMPTATION 317 

reader, a thousand times no. Their process has 
only been quickened ; not a link has been wanting 
which is found in the ordinary chain. So was it 
here. There are moments in our lives which do 
for us what they do for the flowers — concentrate 
much work into a very small space. We measure 
such moments as God measures them — not by 
their length, but by their largeness. I can only 
say that in the whole course of this interview there 
was nothing which came to me with a sense of 
abruptness — nothing which seemed to break the 
sequence of the seedtime and the harvest. One 
day may be as a thousand years ; but it will climb 
the steps of the years. 

The Lord of Palatine had something to say. 
He signed to me to be seated ; but he placed me 
no longer opposite to him, but beside him. Then 
he uttered one w r ord which startled me — " Ecclesia." 
He had never used that form of address to the 
prisoner at the bar ; the handle was dropped, and 
1 trembled. " Ecclesia, will you reign with me ? 
Will you help me to train the youth of this island 
to be followers of the man of the valleys? Are 
you surprised, Ecclesia, that I am so prosaic? 
Every bird has its own song, and I have mine. I 
have never been a man of romance — never looked 
beyond the needs of the common day. My brother 



3i8 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

Hellenicus would have poured forth the notes of 
the lark ; he would have told you of your beauty 
and of his desire. I too know your beauty ; it 
has a touch of the form I saw to-day. But from 
my youth up I have weighed everything for what 
it can bring. Hellenicus would say, ' What a 
source of joy ! ' I say, ' What a power for good ! ' I 
do not think even your beauty would have moved 
me if I had not seen this power. I have beheld 
fair women in my day. I have seen them 
flash through the courts of Hellenicus ; I have 
beheld them sparkle at the board of Palatine. 
But never till now have I looked upon her of 
whom I could say, ' This woman would help me to 
reign.' Never till now have I seen the possibility 
of a helpmeet. Never till now have I believed 
that woman has a place in the history of man. 
You may deem mine a prosaic wooing; but no 
daughter of Palatine has had a tribute like yours. 
Will you be my bride, Ecclesia ? " 

As he ceased the room ran round. Never in 
all my life before or since have I felt so excited. 
What ! says the reader, after such a wooden love- 
making ? Yes. Leaving the daughters of Palatine 
out of the question, it was the greatest tribute I at 
least had ever received. It was more than that. 
It was the greatest temptation which had ever 



THE THIRD WORLDLY TEMPTATION 319 

befallen me. You will remember how as a girl 
the dream of empire had swam before my eyes — 
not for myself, but for my father. Now again it 
glittered, and again it was not for myself. I say 
calmly, conscientiously, there was not in my soul 
one thought of personal ambition. " Will you help 
me to train the youth of this island to be followers 
of the man of the valleys ? " So had run the words 
of the Lord of Palatine ; so ran the refrain in my 
heart. An empire for him — him whom I loved : 
was it not the crown of all desire ? To reach at a 
bound what might take years of pain, to compass 
at a step what centuries might not see — it was a 
thought of maddening joy. It seemed as if God 
had rolled His purpose into my hands, and bade 
me act for Him ; a thousand voices kept singing in 
my ear, " Answer i Yes,' Ecclesia — answer ' Yes/ " 

You will see that this temptation at the top of 
the hill was different from those on the first and 
second plateaus. Those were suggested from with- 
out. They had never had a voice within me, They 
had been rejected as soon as proposed. But this 
was my own desire personified. It sounded like 
an echo of the divine will. It said : " Ecclesia, 
here is a short and easy method for you. You can 
change the worship of this island in a day. You 
can command that the life of the valleys shall be 



320 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

the life of the hill. Heaven has put a rod into your 
hand by which you can force the world into virtue. 
Take the rod, Ecclesia. Grasp the reins of empire 
and drive the steeds where you will — nearer to 
him y nearer ever to him Leave not these un- 
tutored lives to choose their own way. Choose it 
for them, Ecclesia ; drive them into it ; refuse to 
let them ponder ; only reign, reign, reign." 

Then it all flashed upon me — the utter wrong of 
this seeming right. The mask fell from my eyes, 
and I saw it could not be. There was only one feel- 
ing in my soul, gratitude — gratitude for the gift I 
could not take. I threw myself on my knees before 
the Lord of Palatine ; I took his hand ; I bedewed it 
with my tears. " O great, noble man ! " I cried — 
" never so great, never so noble as now ; I could 
wear your badge to-day. I never was so completely 
your captive as at this moment ; your trust has 
indeed gone beyond mine. And yet I cannot, I dare 
not take the boon you offer. To reign with you 
would be to follow your mode of reigning. That is 
command. I dare not command. The empire I 
follow is an empire of love, not of law. It is an 
empire where every one feels he is dead to the 
law — living from choice. I dare not force the 
flower into its bloom ; the man of the valleys would 
not know his own garden. He would miss the 



THE THIRD WORLDLY TEMPTATION 321 

freshness of tint and the fragrance of perfume. 
You and I might not detect it, but he would. I 
think he would rather have the flowers less faultless 
than faultless by artificial power. I may seem 
deeply ungrateful ; but I know you will under- 
stand, I am sure you will forgive." I finished in a 
burst of weeping. 

He raised me ; he clasped my hands in his ; he 
spoke again. "Ecclesia, there is deep truth in 
what you say. Be it so. You cannot reign beside 
me ; then you will reign after me — reign alone 
reign as you will. You may not be my bride 
be then my child. Listen, and I shall tell you 
a secret — a thing which the island knows not. I 
could not have made you my bride in ignorance of 
this secret ; I would have told it from honour ; I 
tell it now from choice. Ecclesia, my life cannot 
be long. I have known it for some time. My 
physicians have apprised me that I have a mortal 
disease. I have not one pang of fear, but I am 
struggling to die in harness. I dread not death, 
but I would not have men see my failing powers. 
I strive to veil my weakness ; I live to hide my 
pain ; I " 

He was interrupted by my emotion. There was 
something so grand, so touching, so characteristic, 
in this man hiding his burden as other men hide 



322 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

their treasures, that I quite broke down. The 
captain had told me I would not see Palatine in its 
former glory. I doubt that. To me the solitary- 
burden was greater than the solitary power. I had 
chafed at the one ; I sank before the other. 

" Ecclesia," he resumed, " you have no cause to 
weep ; you have robbed me to-day of half my pain. 
I looked round the island to adopt a son ; I looked 
in vain. There was none strong enough to stand 
alone. I saw the towers of Palatine disappearing 
in the descending mist, and I was sad. But the 
mist has lifted this morning, and the towers re- 
appear. I have found among the daughters what 
I have lost among the sons. You shall be my 
child, my heir, Ecclesia. You shall revive the 
glories of Palatine when my day is done. Yours 
shall be the broad lands of this island, bounded 
only by the sea. Yours shall be the sea itself — the 
power to traverse waters once forbidden. Yours 
shall be the union of the present and the past* 
to-day shall clasp hands with yesterday. I shall 
be your father on the land, and ben-Israel shall 
be your father on the sea. I shall build for you 
a palace on the hill, and I shall make it like your 
old home, and within it I shall put a shrine which 
shall remind you of the days gone by." 

" Not on the hill," I sobbed—" not on the hill 



THE THIRD WORLDLY TEMPTATION 323 

Give me a dwelling on the ground below. I am 
a child of the valleys. Will not you, my second 
father, be the father of the valleys ? Will you not 
help me to teach men the kingliness of being help- 
ful ? I began yesternight to tell your toilers of the 
dignity of toil : but what is my voice to yours ? 
In vain the daughter of Israel seeks the valley, 
when the Lord of Palatine stands on the hill. Will 
you not help your new-found child ? Will you not 
descend with me that stair by which I came to 
you ? Will you not teach the rulers of coming days 
that to be the greatest is to be the servant of all ? 
Will you not come down and see how in the region 
beneath they weave and spin and sew ? You speak 
of dying ; there is glory for you first — glory which 
the house of Palatine has never known. I ascended 
that stair as a criminal ; I am expected to descend 
as a convict. What influence has a convict to 
make his brethren good ? Come and stand beside 
me, that I may be beautified in your light." 

" I have never been down before," he said in 
deep meditation. 

" No," I answered ; " it is the one part of the island 
which the Lord of Palatine has yet to conquer." 
There was a moment's stillness in the great room ; 
then he put his hand in mine, and we descended 
the long stair together. 



CHAPTER XXX 
CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS 

READER, here for the present I shall pause. 
Perhaps at some future time either my 
hand or the hand of another may continue this 
history. Every end is a beginning, and the 
evening of to-day is the morning of to-morrow. 
Yet I have come to a temporary landing-place, 
to a stage which, in relation to the past, may 
be called the evening. Here therefore let us sit 
down and look back. It is the ordinary plan of 
writers to put prefatory remarks at the opening of 
their books. I am quite sure, however, that, though 
they come at the beginning of the book, they have 
been conceived at the end of it. We do not really 
know where we have begun till we have got to 
the end, for it is by the light of to-day that we 
read the skies of yesterday. We all write our 
preface last. I am going to follow the universal 
example. Here, on the ridge of Palatine, I shall 



CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS 325 

rest awhile ; and casting back my eyes over the 
road I have traversed, I shall try to estimate the 
value of the way. 

Perhaps there is a preliminary question — For 
whom do I design these memoirs ? For the men 
and women of the island ? Yes, undoubtedly ; but 
not exclusively. I have all along had an imagi- 
nary audience. I have never accepted the belief 
that this island is permanently isolated. I have 
seen something in it which never came from it, 
and which therefore must have come from else- 
where. The gulf has been bridged once to the 
outer life of man. If it be so, then the distance, 
however great, cannot be infinite. I have felt that 
what has been done may be done. I have always 
looked forward to a time when, directly or in- 
directly, we shall be united to a mainland. How it 
may be, when it may be, I know not. Whether 
our ships shall penetrate further than those of our 
ancestors, whether there shall be new modes of 
conveyance compared to which our swiftest shall 
be creeping, whether, as in my vision, the sea itself 
shall be dried up and this island become literally a 
continent, I cannot tell. But I have cherished the 
expectation of what I may call a glorious appear- 
ing — of an hour when the waste vacancy shall be 
broken by the sight of an opposite shore. And 



326 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

because I cherish this hope, I live for it, I write in 
the presence of it. I believe our books shall all be 
opened one day. I believe our records shall be of 
as great interest to the dwellers beyond the wave 
as their records would be to us, and I try always 
to keep before me the solemn conviction that the 
history I am writing will be read in places and 
by persons whose very existence is now un- 
dreamed of. 

What then has been the course of this memoir ? 
At a first view it might seem to describe an aimless 
circle in which the end repeats the beginning. 
Looking back from the place which I have reached 
in my narrative, there rise before me three suc- 
cessive scenes. In the first and farthest back I 
am a girl with a dream of empire in my heart. 
I have waked to the sense of my beauty. I have 
realised it rather as a gain than as a pride. I am 
rushing into the pleasures of this island world, not 
for the sake of the pleasures, but with a view to 
the promotion of my house. Then the curtain 
falls, and, when it rises again, I am a girl no more. 
I am a woman, and a woman in solitude. I have 
broken with the island world altogether. I have 
caught sight of something which transcends it, 
eclipses it. I am living in a region of my own, 
keeping my own counsel, holding in my heart an 



CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS 327 

incommunicable secret I am separated from those 
around me by the wall of a great passion, which 
hems me in and will not let me go. I am in love 
with one who was an ideal to me before I knew 
him to be a reality. I am divided from my kind 
by an abnormal experience. I am an island within 
the island. 

Then the curtain falls once more ; and, when 
once more it is lifted, everything seems to have 
come back. I am no longer alone. I have come 
out of my solitude ; I am in the world again. 
Again there floats before me the vision of empire — 
no longer as a far-off prospect, but almost at the 
door. Palatine is at my feet. The island is mine 
potentially — in a few years will be mine actually. 
What my fathers have dreamed of, what my poets 
have sung of, what the prophets of my clan have 
told of, has become a sober fact, a prose reality ; 
and I stand amid the fulfilment of these ambitions 
which made my girlhood a life for the world. 

But is this progress ? Has there been any real 
advance in my journey ? Have I not been tread- 
ing a labyrinth which, while it seemed to lead me 
on, has simply brought me back to the place from 
which I came ? Was it worth while to have had 
a moment of solitude, of separation, of isolation ? 
Entrancing as it was, elevating as it was, soul- 



328 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

inspiring as it was, was it not a waste of time, if 
the world were after all my goal ? What need to 
be made a child of the valleys, if only to be trans- 
formed at last into the Queen of Palatine ? 

Nay but, most inquiring reader, there has been 
no transformation. It is the child of the valleys who 
has become the Queen of Palatine. Do you think 
the vision I met in solitude has ever faded from 
my eyes, ever lessened its brightness by a single 
ray ? Do you think I left him to come to Palatine ? 
Nay; it was he who brought me to Palatine. 
Together we climbed the great hill — together we 
faced the three temptings — together we ascended 
the long stair. Do you know the difference 
between treading the same road before and after 
love? To the common eye it is a monotonous 
repetition ; to the eye kindled by love it is a new 
scene. It is not merely that something is added ; 
it is that everything has changed its meaning ; 
the twilight has become the dawn. So has it 
been with me. I have passed from the world 
to the world ; but in the passage I have met 
one who has illumined my days. To outward 
appearance I have simply come through the 
labyrinth to the spot where I used to dwell. 
But the labyrinth itself has been the progress. 
I went in alone; I have come out accompanied, 



CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS 329 

and that makes all the difference between the 
flesh and the spirit. 

When the Lord of Palatine saw in the glare of 
busy day the cross with that inscription, " By this 
conquer," he saw the new world into which I had 
come. It was revealed to me through him that my 
empire itself was to be my altar. It was proclaimed 
in letters of gold that the head of the stair was to 
be the foot, now, henceforth, and for evermore. It 
was written upon the air of heaven that the ruler 
was to be the servant, the king the priest, the 
master the menial. I was not disobedient to the 
heavenly vision. I took the crown as a cross, 
the sceptre as a sacrifice. When the Lord of 
Palatine closed his eyes in death, I was called to 
be a queen. It came to me as a call to service 
— service more lowly than I had ever known. 
Instead of standing at the top of the stair looking 
down, I felt myself to be at the foot of the stair 
looking up. I had the sensation of being the 
property of another — bought with a price. It 
seemed to me that henceforth I was bound to 
take my orders from every one. Even the lowliest 
appeared one step above me, and a voice kept ever 
ringing in my ears, " Ecclesia, they are all your 
masters now." 

In the years that have come this has always 



33© THE LADY ECCLESIA 

been my attitude. I do not say it has always 
been the attitude of the band of workers whom 
I have gathered round me. Often have they 
forgotten themselves. Often have they returned 
to the pride of the old house of Palatine. Often 
have they made others weep with the vaunting of 
their power — but none so bitterly as me. I have 
never varied. From morn to midday I have been 
the child of the valleys. When my followers have 
lorded it, I have hid my face and blushed. I have 
never varied, and Phoebe has never varied. At 
the time when others have been showing pride on 
the upper ground, she and I have generally been 
down on the lower, helping the needs of man. 
I do not think we have ever paused in this part 
of our work. Other things may have been inter- 
rupted, but not charity. There is one work Phoebe 
and I are prouder of than all other improvements. 
We have planned and superintended the erection 
of a new and additional hospital. We have written 
on it the inscription, " For the benefit of those who 
are not likely to live." It is to be in all time for 
the men, women, and children who are unfit to 
run, who give no hope of ever being fit to run. It 
is just the opposite of the old building. We have 
let them in on the very spot where the ancient 
hospital put them out — the steps of despair. It is 



CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS 331 

a home for the stranded, for the island's rejected. 
Phoebe and I have each lent them something. I 
have brought them the golden cross, and the little 
vial, and the picture of him with the marred visage ; 
Phoebe, with the true instinct of her clan, has 
carried flowers to make them glad. We are 
striving to undo the ravages of the olden time. 

And yet I would not have you think that I am 
no longer anchored to the past I am — although 
my anchor is not on the shore, but in the sea. 
The father of my adoption sleeps amid the woods 
of Palatine ; but the father of my life is still alive. 
I know not where he dwells ; I have failed to find 
him. We have pierced farther into the mystic 
depth of waters than ever mariner sailed before ; 
but w r e have found no trace of the land which 
preserves without a possession the name of Moses 
ben-Israel. Years have passed, and he must now 
be an old man ; but the promise of the storm-cloud 
keeps sounding in my soul, " He shall return, and 
you shall nourish his old age and make him young 
once more." The future holds my past ; therefore 
it cannot die. It is preserved by the salt sea ; it is 
wafted back by the breeze of ocean. That is why 
I have not returned to the oH home. If my father 
had been to me only a memory, I would have 
made my dwelling in the scene of his sojourn. 



332 THE LADY ECCLESIA 

But my father is not a memory ; he is a hope. 
He is not behind ; he is before. Therefore I feel 
that I am nearest to him looking out upon the 
blue waves, watching the breakers' foam, listening 
to the hum of waters. As I gaze on that scene — 
the first joy of my childhood — it is not my child- 
hood that chiefly comes back to me. It is the 
thought of the day when, as a woman, I shall meet 
him on the shore, and, pointing to the broad fields 
of Palatine, shall say, " Your prophecy was true 
after all." 



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